


It's Christmas In Hollywood

by orphan_account



Category: Hollywood Undead (Band)
Genre: Advent Calendar, Christmas, Don't know what I'm doing, F/M, Gay Drama, M/M, No Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-03 07:55:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 35,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8703964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Christmas is coming and Hollywood Undead is going crazy.Da Kurlzz and Charlie Scene are fighting over the same gay jokes again and everybody is simply stressed, worn out by the tour they were still on.This year, they decided to do Christmas special and therefore, not be able to go home over the holidays.Of course, that doesn’t help the mood at all.And in all that chaos, Danny gets an idea from his daughter, so when they have a free evening again, he goes off alone to buy an advent calendar to bring some more childish joy back on the bus.Even though Da Kurlzz and Johnny are thinking it’s the worst idea ever, Charlie and Funny love the thought of being able to be kids again and J-Dog just wants to enjoy the peace he can get from all the fighting.In the end, they just need something to look forwards to every morning, again.They are forever young.And childish.





	1. 30. November

**Author's Note:**

> Just to warn anybody bored enough to read this ... I'm updating in German time so ... it might be early or late wherever you guys are so don't hate me for that ... it's time difference ... it sucks ...

“Thank you Atlanta, you have been fucking awesome tonight!”, Danny shouted in his mic, enjoying the screaming fans who only came here to hear them sing. He would never get tired of this sound. 

They were all worn out from the concert, getting rid of the shirts as soon as they were off-stage and throwing them in the dressing room carelessly.

“I wanna get fucked up now!”, Funny laughed, draping his arm over Danny’s shoulders. 

“How about you fuck off and shower first? You’re sweaty.”

“That’s because I’m fucking hot!”

The Mexican rapper winks at his lead singer and disappears in the small bathroom. 

“Did he fucking steal the first shower again?”, Johnny asked, annoyed. Even though he loved the concerts, he was tired of the tour and pissed off, because the management had decided they should do a Christmas tour, which meant that he couldn’t go home over the holidays to spend the time with his daughter. 

“I told him to. You should’ve been next to him for a second … it’s disgusting”, Danny explained, smiling. He was still pumped on adrenaline from the show. 

Johnny didn’t respond, he simply sighed and let himself fall on the couch in the dressing room.

Grinning, Danny sat down on the couch as well, lifting Johnny’s legs to put them over his lap once he was sat. 

Everything was calm for a second, while they both heard the water of the shower running and were waiting for Funny Man to finish. Well, really, it was calm for one second. Because then J-Dog, Charlie and DaKurlzz entered the dressing room as well, fighting once again. Well, Charlie and DaKurlzz were fighting, J-Dog obviously ignored their situation and chatted with someone on his phone, probably his family. 

“How many times do I have to tell you that I’m sick of the gay jokes?!”, DaKurlzz shouted, making Danny and Johnny look at each other with raised eyebrows. This was an old argument between the other two members and everybody in the band was surprised how they kept it up that long. 

“Oh, boo-hoo, that’s so old. How have you not gotten used to it?!”, Charlie responded, shaking his head. 

“I don’t wanna get used to you being a fucking moron!”

“Well, sorry, princes! Do you want to be in a pop band?” 

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”  
“Am I?”  
“Jordon …”, DaKurlzz started, but then let it go and simply stumped off, a pack of cigarettes in his hand. Now this was a new point, usually DaKurlzz barely used Charlie’s real name. Apparently, he also managed to stun Charlie, because he didn’t move at all, just stared at the door the drummer had left through.

“Seriously, Charlie, you two fight like a married couple!”, J-Dog complained, now pushing Johnny’s legs off the couch to sit down next to Danny. Johnny groaned, but didn’t say anything, simply sitting up as well. 

“Should I check on him?”, the bandana rapper asked, ignoring J-Dog’s comment. 

“Oh hell no!”, Johnny exclaimed, “He is so fucking pissed at you, if you now go out to check on him, he will slice your throat without hesitation. I’m going.”

With that he stood up and grabbed his own cigarettes, as well as a lighter, and headed out as well. 

“Why is he so pissed as well?”, J-Dog asked, turning towards Danny who shrugged. 

“I think he’s worn out from the tour and simply wants to go home and not spend the whole December inclusive Christmas on tour without his daughter …” 

“Makes sense.”

J-Dog nodded slowly, reaching out for a beer can standing on the small table next to him. 

“You too?”, he asked, looking at Charlie and Danny who both nodded. The bandana rapper finally decided to sit down as well, taking over Johnny’s spot. Just when he relaxed, the bathroom door opened and Funny came in, a towel wrapped around his waist. 

“Yo, where’s the rest?” 

“Smoking.” 

“And they didn’t invite me?!”, Funny complained, grabbing a beer as well and mentioning for Danny to get up. 

“Your turn, Danny-boy!”

The lead singer nodded, placing his beer on the table again and getting up to make room for Funny. 

“Scar wanted to call me tonight … if she does while I’m in the shower, please answer but watch your mouthes. It’s not my wife … she doesn’t need to know every insult you know.”

With that, he gave J-Dog (the only one present he would trust with this) his phone and went in the bathroom to take a shower, too. It was always the most relaxing part after a show, to get rid of the sweat and relax the muscles again. 

- 

Meanwhile, DaKurlzz and Johnny were sitting outside, smoking their cigarettes and staring at the street. 

“You know that Charlie won’t stop with these jokes.” 

“Yeah … doesn’t mean I can’t get pissed at him.” 

“There’s so much else to be pissed at, is Charlie really worth your time?”

“Well, that and the fact that I have to bear him for another month now. It’s such a shitty idea … why won’t they let us go home, so that you and Danny can see your kids and I can sit home alone with some Cheetos and watch the same stupid movies over and over again?” 

Johnny shrugged, flicking the butt of his cigarette away. 

“They said something about making our fans happy and spending more time together. As if we wouldn’t know each other since our teenage years …”

DaKurlzz nodded slowly, following Johnny’s example with the cigarette and standing up again. 

“Anyways, I need a shower and I need to hit Charlie in the face … you coming, too?”

Johnny looked at the street another second, then he stood up as well, following the screamer inside. 

 -

When Danny got out of the shower, he was greeted with an hilarious sight. J-Dog was talking on Danny’s phone, probably with his daughter Scarlett who had called while he was away. Johnny was staring into his open can of beer. Charlie was sitting on the couch, clutching his cheek while DaKurlzz stood above him, growling. Funny was watching the scene as well, quietly laughing to himself. 

Shaking his head, Danny walked up to J-Dog and took over his phone again. 

“Hey Scar, how are you, princess?”

“Hi dad! Mummy said I’d get a surprise tomorrow!”

“Oh, really?”, Danny asked, smiling to himself. 

“Yes! It’s the first of December! I get an advent calendar. And then I get a little surprise every morning until Christmas!” 

“That sounds great!”  
“What are you doing?”  
“Nothing. We just got off-stage. Everybody is still pumped from the show.”  
“J-Dog said that Charlie and DaKurlzz were fighting again …”  
“Yeah … but that’s normal. We’re all stressed.”

There was a short pause, but then Scarlett laughed. 

“I have an idea.”  
“You do, honey?”  
Danny looked around again and smiled when he saw DaKurlzz grinning when he beat Charlie to the next shower. Charlie shook his head as he wanted to take back his seat that was taken by Johnny already. 

“Why don’t you have an advent calendar as well. Then they can be happy about a surprise every morning until you can come back home.”  
Even though the idea sounded a little strange, Danny considered it. They were all so childish anyways, they might really enjoy something like that. 

“That’s a great idea. You’re an angel!”

“No … I’m a demon.”  
“Of course. The cruelest of them all.”

He heard his daughter chuckle, when his wife called out for dinner in the background. 

“Now, come on, Scar, time to eat. You can call me tomorrow again if you want to, okay?”  
“Yes. I will. Bye, daddy!”

With that the connection broke and Danny put his phone away again. Walking back to J-Dog, he didn’t even look for a free seat, but simply sat down on the rapper’s lap. 

“Ugh, warn me next time!”  
“Nope. That would be boring.” 

J-Dog shook his head, but didn’t fight him. “

Carefully, Danny leaned forwards to whisper in his ear: 

“I have an idea to make DaKurlzz and Charlie shut up again, at least Charlie. Do you think you can cover me in the club later, I’ll need to sneak out and buy some stuff.”  
J-Dog raised his eyebrows, but nodded at the singer.

“Sure thing. You’re phoning your wife. For a very long time.”  
Danny shook his head, but muttered a small thanks, before leaning back and closing his eyes. 

“You know that falling asleep isn’t the smartest idea now.”  
“Why not?”  
“Because I have to go get a shower as well and I will simply let you fall on the floor if you’re in my way.”  
Groaning, Danny stood up again and sat down in Funny’s lap instead, closing his eyes again. 

“Don’t push me off!”, he warned, but Funny Man simply chuckled and nodded. 

“Sure. Get comfortable. I’ll wake you when we have to leave.”

-

An hour later, they were sitting in the nearest club, drinking shots together. 

When Charlie, Johnny and Funny hit the dance floor, Danny looked down on his phone, shooting J-Dog a quick glance.  
“I’m going for a smoke, you coming, too?”

J-Dog nodded, downing another drink and reaching for Danny’s arm to stable himself. DaKurlzz watched him with a small grin. 

“I’ll watch the drinks and our idiots. Don’t take too long.”  
Nodding their thanks, the two moved out of the club in the back alley, where J-Dog lit up a cigarette, smirking at Danny. 

“If you’re taking too long we’ll leave without you. We have to be on the bus by midnight.”  
“I won’t take that long, but yeah, I’ll meet you there.”  
J-Dog smiled and started to smoke while Danny made his way downtown, hoping to find an advent calendar that late for the band. 

 -

At 11pm, Danny arrived at the tour bus, a black advent calendar with small criminal case stories every day.

He hid it in one of the empty cupboards, then he sat down on the couch and switched on the TV, enjoying the time alone before his drunk band mates came back. The only bad point was that he had to get up first, although that only meant he’d have to wake up before Johnny, because everybody else slept longer than him anyways, unless J-Dog didn’t sleep at all.

 -

Half an hour later, the rest of the band arrived in the bus, totally wasted and Johnny was carrying Funny Man. Charlie was leaning on DaKurlzz, laughing about jokes only he could understand. J-Dog lagged behind a little, grinning wide when he saw Danny. 

“Danny-boy! You’re here!” 

The lead singer grinned and waved the rapper over. 

“Who’s the affectionate drunk now?”

Johnny fell down on the couch as well, after dropping Funny into his bunk.

“He’s been making love declarations all night!”, Johnny complained. “After you ditched us at least.”

“Sorry. Reese called and I didn’t want to let her down again.” 

“It’s cool. Just don’t expect me to save you from cuddly puppy here.”

Danny chuckled, looking at J-Dog who had wrapped his arms around the singer’s waist. 

“I’ll survive … as soon as he’s asleep.”  
Johnny grinned, nodding absently and focusing on the TV. Danny pulled J-Dog closer, ruffling his short hair and then leaned back again, letting J-Dog rest against him as he watched the stupid teenager show currently airing. He would carry J-Dog to his bunk later and then plan out exactly what to do tomorrow.

 


	2. 1. December

When Johnny woke up, he could already hear somebody up front. The strange part was that he usually was the first awake, unless J-Dog hadn’t gotten any sleep at all. But looking over to his band mate’s bunk, he noticed a tattooed arm hanging out of the curtain. Smiling slightly to himself, he stood up, taking another look around to find out who was missing. Nobody else showed any sign of existence, all the curtains were closed and the light snoring was unidentifiable. If he had to take a wild guess, Johnny would say that Danny was already up. The singer usually didn’t sleep much longer than him and tended to have an incredible light and restless sleep when he was stressed. Even though Danny had never shown signs of being tense in the last days, Johnny figured that not being able to see his daughter would rob his peace.

-

Finally deciding to just look, Johnny opened the door separating the bunks from their small kitchen and stepped into the lounge part. He had been right, Danny was up and making coffee, barely looking up when his bandmate entered.

“Danny-boy, what’s up?”

“Us.”

Johnny shook his head, sitting down slowly. 

“Drink your damn coffee, then I can talk to you … why are you already up anyways?”

The momentarily blonde grinned half heartedly and sat down opposite of Johnny.

“I had to plan something to stop Charlie’s bantering with Kurlzz.”

“Oh really? Please tell me you got something good … they’re annoying the shit out of me …”

The lead singer chuckled, looking down onto his hands. 

“Sorry, but it’s only for this Christmas tour … and I’m not sure if it works.”

“Tell me about it.”

Usually Johnny didn’t care about anything in the morning, but the thought of Charlie leaving Kurlzz alone intrigued him, even though it seemed impossible. 

Instead of answering directly, Danny pointed at the wall, where an advents calendar was hanging. Not the childish kind, but in black and from what it said on the front, with criminal stories every day. I had to admit that it wounded kinda cool, but also weird.

“You know … it’s insane …”  
Danny’s shoulders slumped immediately, but Johnny wasn’t done yet:

“But we might need a little insane to gain control over Charlie.”

Now the lead singer smiled a little shrugging. 

“It was Scar’s idea. When she heard about them fighting, she immediately said that they should have one to look forwards to a small surprise every day. I just didn’t have the guts to buy a childish one …”

Johnny chuckled, checking over the calendar one more time. 

“I’m sure that would’ve been hilarious as well.”

Shrugging carelessly, Danny stood up again, refilling his coffee. For a second, he also thought about making Irish coffee, but decided against it. They didn't need to think he did it only because he was drunk. 

"To you maybe, but I don't want Charlie to flip."

"Danny, you can box like a champion ... what should he do to you?"

The singer sighed quietly, looking towards the bunk parts where the rest of the band was sleeping.

"He's one of my best friends, you know? I don't wanna risk losing him over something this stupid and childish, too ..."

Johnny shook his head, knowing all too well what Danny was referring to. Him and Deuce, their former lead singer, has gotten along quite well until Deuce got kicked out for being a huge asshole and started to despise Danny, simply because of something J-Dog had said in the heat of the moment. Not that it was the only reason, Deuce was also jealous as fuck of Danny's voice and Danny's family. Deuce was all alone, after J-Dog has split up with him. Before, Deuce had accused him of cheating with the Acosta Rican. Even though J-Dog had had a crush on the blonde, he wouldn't have cheated. Also, Danny was straight. When he learned about the rapper liking him, he had to turn him down, but still liked to hang out with him more than with the others. 

"You know, Charlie's cool, he can take a joke. He won't hate you for having some fun."

The singer smiled softly. 

"That's why I did it in the first place."

Johnny was about to respond something, when the door opened and J-Dog entered, looking completely miserable while groaning at the bright light. He was totally hung over.

Danny chuckled as he gave his band mate coffee and painkillers. 

"You're an angel."

"I know. Why are you up?"

"Charlie and DaKurlzz are awake. I'm done with their shit."

Both other band members groaned. 

"We need to get Charlie out here ...", Johnny mumbled, pointing at the calendar again. J-Dog grinned, looking at Danny. 

"Scar's idea, huh?"

The singer nodded. J-Dog shrugged, downing his coffee.

"It's cute."

-

Charlie came into the room another hour later, followed by some colorful insults shouted by DaKurlzz. 

"Oh my God, why is he so pissed again? What did you do now, Charlie?", Johnny groaned, barely looking at the bandana rapper who folded his arms angrily. 

"I didn't do anything! He's the bitch!"

"Oh please, my daughter knows better arguments than you!", Danny chuckled, slinging an arm around Charlie's shoulders, before continuing: "Dammit, Funny knows better ones!" 

"That's not true! He can't even read!"

"What's up?", Funny asked, walking in just at the right moment. He broke through the tension, making everyone crack up a smile. 

"You need a coloring book!"

"Yeah sure ... I need coffee!"

He tumbled over to the machine, stopping short to stare at the calendar.

"Damn, what's that shit doing here?"

"Well, Sherlock, you noticed that quickly ... I think Charlie can't really mock you now!", J-Dog grinned, looking over at Charlie who looked back and forth between the calendar and Danny. 

"You didn't talk to Reese at all yesterday, did you?"

"Nah, but you know you should really solve today's riddle."

"Why?"

"So you don't fucking annoy Kurlzz for a month, he needs a break. So go play Sherlock Holmes and leave our poor rainbow alone!"

"Really, Danny, you too? Are you all against me?", DaKurlzz asked quietly, stepping up to the others. 

"Dammit, Kurlzz, I don't mean it as an insult ..."

"Oh are you sure?"

The singer shook his head, walking over to J-Dog and kissing his cheek. 

"There, I'm playing the gay card. They say I'm the bitch. It's how we show our love. Maybe Charlie wishes you were gay, why don't you just play along? Nobody insults you for being gay it's just ... you're cute. Not manly enough for Charlie not to give you stupid nicknames", Danny explained, noticing J-Dog blush badly. 

"Whatever, I'm sick of it! You can go to your secret boyfriend or whatever, I don't care, but don't expect me to be okay with being called gay all the time."

With that he sat down on the couch. Danny sighed before sitting down next o him.

"But Matty ..."

The drummer raised his eyebrows at him. He knew what Danny wanted and he knew he wouldn't mind it, but he didn't want to give it that easily. However, when Danny used his puppy eyes, DaKurlzz smiled softly. 

"C'm here, idiot!", he grinned, opening his arms when Danny hugged him close, burying his face in his shoulder. When they separated, Danny kissed him on the cheek, too. This time, only Johnny noticed the glimpse of anger in J's eyes.

"Hey, J, wanna have a smoke?"

The rapper nodded quickly, grabbing a pack of cigarettes and a lighter as the two left the bus.

-

"You really shouldn't lose your cool ... I know it's stressful, I know you're pissed ... we all are worn out ... but please, we don't want you to fuck in our bunks anyways, so don't get too moody."

J-Dog huffed angrily.

"Do you think of me as a stupid teenage girl?"

"No, goddammit! I don't wanna fight with you guys! I know I'm moody, too and pissing you off. I know I don't say this in wisely chosen words, but we can't afford shit right now."

"I just ... I ... it hurts ... having the one you want in front of you ... and talk to his perfect family."

Johnny knew that Danny's family was not perfect at all. He knew that Reese believed Danny didn't love her anymore, but they stayed together for their daughter's sake. But the rapper kept quiet. He didn't want to give Jay false signs. 

"J, you gotta stay strong! Danny loves you!"

"As a brother ..."

"Better than hate, isn't it? Look, I appreciate you not drowning your misery in alcohol and I know you can keep that up. But maybe also look for someone else ... I can't stand your pained face and you being so heartbroken all the time anymore."

J-Dog flicked he butt of his cigarette away and turned to hug his best friend.

"Club. Tonight."

"Alright, mate ..."

-

Meanwhile on the bus, Charlie was opening the first box, to pull out a short riddle: 

_Sherlock breaks into a crime scene. The victim is the owner who is slumped dead on a chair and have a bullet hole in his head. A gun lies on the floor and a cassette recorder is found on the table. On pressing the play button, Sherlock hears the message 'I have committed sins in my life and now I offer my soul to the great lord....following a gunshot._

_Sherlock smiles Of-course its a murder._

_Why did he think so?_

-

Charlie laughed and read it out loud again for everybody to hear. 

“This is priceless, Danny! It’s awesome!”, he cheered, ruffling the singer’s hair. 

“Glad you like it … but thank my daughter. It was her idea after all.”

The rapper smiled and skipped off to call Scar and soon they could all hear him talk loudly on the phone. Danny smiled and looked at DaKurlzz who was smiling softly. 

“He seems to be so chill right now. Thank you.”  
“Honestly, I was just sick of hearing you fight all the time …”  
“Yeah sure, you too, dude!”

The singer flipped him off and shook his head. 

“Fuck off and solve the riddle yourself!” 

The drummer smiled and nodded, taking the note that Charlie had left on the table and rereading it again.

“Sure. It’s easy … how is the dead supposed to rewind the tape himself?”

 


	3. 2. December

"Guys, it's snowing!", Funny shouted, jumping into the lounge part where Danny and Charlie were already sitting, looking at him with raised eyebrows. 

"It's snowing since 5."

The Mexican shrugged and sat down next to them.

"Where is everybody?"

"Johnny and J-Dog are still in a club, Matt is sleeping. He was sick yesterday evening though. You probably didn't notice. You were too stoned to notice you were drinking hot sauce", Danny explained.

"So J and J are wasted and Kurlzz is sick? And it's miracle I'm not puking my guts out."

Charlie nodded and stood up to get himself a cold beer, not caring that it was still before noon. It wasn't like there were any kids around he could be a bad example for anyways. 

"They are still partying ... shouldn't they be back by now?", Funny asked, once he checked the time. 

"Well, they probably passed out somewhere ..."

"Or they found some girls."

Danny shook his head, pushing the strands out of his face.

"Johnny's head over heels into Asia and he wouldn't dare to hurt his daughter like that. And Jay ... Jay wouldn't ... he's not really the type for one night stands, is he?"

"I don't know! I honestly don't care who he brings over ...", Charlie explained, chuckling slightly.

Funny shook his head and checked his phone for any messages from the two. 

"Danny's right. Jay is still so hurt by Deuce, but he never brought someone home from a party, he didn't even drink the weeks after we kicked Deuce out. Why would he start something like that now?"

Charlie shrugged, emptying the beer with one last large sip and looking out of the window. 

"Honestly, I'm starting to worry about them, especially Johnny, because even though it's unlikely, Jay maybe simply found a date, but Johnny ... where is our bad guy?"

Being tired of sitting around, Danny stood up, grabbing his jacket. 

"I'm looking for them both. Funny, you wanna tag along?"

The Mexican nodded and followed the singer, while Charlie looked over to the bunks part. 

"You two go! I'm staying in case they come back and to take care of Matty ..." 

"Alright, text us if something happens. Don't kill him!"

"I fear he would kill me first …"

-

Funny and Danny were walking through the streets of the city, looking around for any clubs and bars that looked like Johnny and Jay would go into them. When they exited the third one where the bar keeper had not seen the two, they were close to giving up, going back on the bus and just wait for them to come back. But of course, that wouldn’t be part of their codex of never leaving your bros behind. So they entered the fourth bar, where the bar keeper was cleaning up the pieces of broken glasses from the floor. He looked up at them and raised his eyebrows. 

“Sorry, but we don’t offer any alcohol at the moment.”  
“We’re not looking for drinks, we’re looking for two friends of ours … they went out yesterday evening and still haven’t returned to our apartment.” 

“Broad shoulders, grim face, short brown hair and blue eyes?” 

“One of them, yes!”, Danny exclaimed, breathing out in relief. 

“He passed out here, he’s laying behind that black curtain on a couch … I was hoping that he would wake up or somebody would look for him.” 

“Was he with a shorter man, dark hair, brown eyes and gauges?”

The barkeeper thought for a second, then nodded. 

“Yes … but he left with some girl in his arms … I don’t know where they went, sorry.”

Danny frowned, but nodded slowly. 

“Thank you.”  
“Nothing to thank me for. I only advise you to have some aspirin for your friend here ready, he got really wasted in the night. I was afraid he would start a fight, but he didn’t …”

“That’s a first”, Funny chuckled.

The bartender grinned and walked the two of them over to the black curtain. 

“He didn’t even insult anybody … he only looked kind of weird when his companion started talking to this girl … I don’t know her name, but she has long hair that is half white, half black.” 

It hurt to hear that Jay had gone out with some bar chick, but at least they had found Johnny. 

Behind the curtain, the muscular rapper was laying on a couch, still passed out. Danny chuckled quietly and walked over to him, shaking him slightly to wake him up.  

“Whaaaat?”, he groaned, blinking against the bright light shining at him. 

“Good morning to you, too, asshole.” 

“Funny?”  
“Damn right, bro. Danny’s here as well.”   
“Where’s Jay?”

Johnny looked at Danny with some kind of sorrow in his eyes. 

“He started talking to that rock girl … Vanessa or something … I think he went home with her.”

“Why would he do that? Like seriously?” 

“I don’t know … he tried to get over Deuce, I guess, tried to get over you, too. He believes you are the happiest man alive with your wife and daughter …” 

Now the singer looked to the ground, remembering the day J-Dog had told him he had a crush on him like it happened yesterday.

-

_“D-danny? Can I talk to you for a second?”, Jay asked quietly, pulling Danny up from the couch and leading him out of the room._

_“What’s up, bro? Are you alright?”_

_“Y-yeah … I’m good … I just need to tell you something …”  
“Please tell me you don’t cut again!”_

_“No, it’s not like that. Not at all.”_

_Danny breathed out in relief and sat down on the couch, looking at Jay expectantly._

_“Shoot!”_

_J-Dog looked down on the ground, avoiding Danny’s eyes for all cost._

_“I-I uh kinda … maybe … have a tiny … well … not so tiny … crush on … uhm … you …”, he mumbled, his voice shaking with fear of rejection. Danny had to pull himself together so he didn’t jump him immediately, but he had to stay calm for his daughter’s sake. So instead of grabbing the rapper he loved for a long desired kiss, he stood up and hugged him close, pecking his cheek softly._

_“I’m sorry.”_

_“I understand …”_

_“Wait, Jay, I want to explain … it’s not that I don’t like you … but I have a daughter … I have a wife …”_

_“I know … I’m … sorry …”  
Danny shook his head furiously. _

_“No! Don’t apologise! This is not your fault and I’m glad you told me … it’s just that I can’t be your boyfriend or something, okay?”_

_J-Dog nodded slowly and leaned against Danny, seeking the comfort of his warm body._

_“I promise you, J, I will come to you soon, I will make you mine …”_

-

He hadn’t kept that promise until now, so he had to pay for it. Jay had gone with someone else, he had waited for him too long. It was understandable, but that didn’t mean it hurt less. 

-

Going back on the bus, they couldn’t do anything more but wait for J-Dog to come back and solve the next riddle from the calendar while they were sitting around. This time, it wasn’t Sherlock Holmes style again:

 

_Two girls eat dinner together. Both order iced tea. One girl drank them very quickly and downed five of them, while the other one only drank one. The girl who drinks many survives, but the other one dies. All of the drinks are poisoned. Why?_

 

Charlie frowned and also Funny had to think about it for a minute, but then his face lit up. 

“Guys, it’s easy! If you drink an iced tea really fast, what doesn’t happen?”

Now Charlie grinned to, understanding what Funny tried to point out. 

“The ice doesn’t melt. The ice is poisoned.” 

Both of the rappers high fived, while Johnny and Danny sat at the table, shaking their heads. DaKurlzz drowsily looked up from his position on the couch. 

“Can you two shut up?” 

Everybody froze and expected Charlie to start another fight with the drummer, but the bandana rapper simply nodded.   
“Sure. Sorry.” 

Johnny raised his eyebrows and leaned forwards to whisper in Danny’s ear: “What the fuck happened to him?” 

“I don’t know …” 

Charlie turned around, smiling. 

“Do you like my nice side?”

Both men shook their heads. Funny didn’t say anything, but grinned knowingly. 

“What? You make me distract myself so I wouldn’t annoy him, now I apologise and you look at me like I’m the devil … can you decide for once what you want?”

Danny smiled softly, going over to Charlie. 

“We actually wanted you to change that way, we simply didn’t expect you to.”

Charlie grinned. 

“I get to be the gentleman of the group now, right?”

 

The singer was about to answer, when the door flew open and J-Dog entered the bus, a girl by his side. Danny frowned and Jay noticed immediately, but he smiled hesitantly and looked around the room. Everybody was staring at him, kind of shocked, kind of excited. J-Dog grabbed her soft hand and grabbed onto it tightly. 

“Guys? This is Vanessa … my girlfriend …”


	4. 3. December

“Danny and I are heading for the store, anything you guys need?”, Johnny asked, grabbing his jacket. 

Everybody simply shook their heads, barely looking up from their phones. The lead singer was out of the door already, not able to look at J-Dog and his girlfriend any longer. Even though she had been so nice to him yesterday evening, he despised her. Simply because she had taken Jay from him. But apparently she had already noticed that and stopped talking to him, still smiling politely whenever he walked past. He ignored her. Of course J-Dog noticed the coldness Danny directed at his girlfriend, but he didn’t understand why. The singer had said they couldn’t be together, he shouldn’t flip out about every girl close to Jay and Danny knew that, too. He simply couldn’t decide. On the one hand, he didn’t want to lose his family, on the other hadn't he didn’t want to watch J-Dog get taken by someone else. Yes, he was greedy. A greedy bisexual. What a stereotype …

-

“Oh come on, Danny, stop bitching!”, Johnny complained when he saw the face Danny made. He didn’t like to be involved in all of their drama, but he knew he couldn’t stay out of it. Of course he was the one to push J-Dog to get a girl- or boyfriend, but he didn’t intend on hurting Danny, he only wanted to see the rapper smile again. But Johnny was sure that Danny would be okay on his own and if he wasn’t, he would talk. J-Dog was another case. Johnny knew that Jay had almost hit rock bottom several times and he wasn’t going to let him start self-harming again. The pain he remembered from seeing his bleeding scars the first time, was enough to scare him for a lifetime. He hadn’t been supposed to see it. 

-

_Johnny opened the door, letting his jacket drop on the floor and put the grocery bags on the kitchen table._

_“Jay? You home?”_

_He didn’t even know why he asked, J-Dog’s jacket was hanging next to the door, his shoes were scattered around the hallway and his car was parked in front of the house. He wouldn’t walk barefoot without a jacket at this time, not even if he was stoned as fuck._

_“Come on! If you don’t answer I’ll have to guess you’re jerking off to one direction!”_

_Still nothing. The house stayed quiet._

_“Whatever, bro”, Johnny murmured, walking upstairs to shower. When he opened the bathroom door however, he froze, staring down at Jay’s motionless body on the tiles, blood all around him and a razor blade as well as an empty bottle of pills.  
“Oh no, Jay, not on my watch!”_

_He pulled out his phone and dialled 911, while he was checking for a pulse and breathing._

_“911. What’s your emergency?”_

_“My friend tried to commit suicide. He cut and swallowed a bunch of pills, but I can’t say how many. Sleeping aids and painkillers for sure.”_

_“Is he still breathing?”_

_“Yes. A bit shallow, but yes. His heart is beating, too.”_

_“That’s good. Please try to stop the bleeding and sit him up if you can.”_

_“Done.”_

_“An ambulance is on its way. Can you tell us the exact address?”_

-

“Johnny, you alright? You like … completely zoned out.”

The rapper nodded a little too quickly. 

“Just some bad memories. I’m good.” 

“Sure?” 

“Damn, Danny, I don’t need a mother! I promise you that if I feel like shit, I will talk to you or more likely my wife. I’m not Jay who bottles everything up until he can’t take it anymore. But seriously, I’m totally alright.”

“Whatever you say, dude.”

“Shut up!”

“Jerk.”

  
“Bitch.”

-

After that short incident, shopping went on as usual, Danny becoming exited like a young child whenever he saw chocolate and other sweets. 

“Oh come on, we already have some cookies and chocolate with us, Danny, we don’t need other stuff! We have chips and nuts on the bus, too.”

“But Johnny …”  
“God, you’re as horrifying as my daughter. Except you don’t threaten me like her.”

“Please …”

Johnny sighed, then nodded. 

“One more box of Christmas cookies or something, anything that fits into the season for Christ’s sake, but nothing more, get it?”

The lead singer nodded, smiling and started to jump up and down, before running away to get some cookies. 

-

Somehow Johnny felt like he had another child to take care of when Danny stared at the cookies in awe, long after they had left the shop.  
“They are normal chocolate chip cookies … why are you worshipping them?” 

“Johnny, the last time I had cookies … Reese says I should control myself in front of my daughter.” 

“Even though she might be right about your daughter, damn you should just eat one cookie with her once in a while so you don’t freak out like this every Christmas.”  
“Oh believe me, Scar’s so much worse than me …”  
“And the most horrifying thing about that is that I can totally imagine that!”

“Reese has to suffer a lot through holiday season.”

“I can imagine … but she has the sweetest husband in the world.” 

Danny shook his head. 

“No. She doesn’t. She’s such a nice girl, she should really have somebody who loves her by her side and I can’t give her that. I can’t. I like her, she is like a sister to me, and there was a time I really loved her, I didn’t marry her for nothing, but right now, I can’t give her what she deserves.”

“Danny! You gotta stop lying to her like that. If you don’t love her, tell her. She’ll understand …” 

“A, no she won’t. B, I told her, but she said that we should stay together for Scarlett’s sake. We’re basically just siblings at the moment for our own good, but … it just … I wanna date! I can’t because I feel like cheating on her, but I … I need to freshen up my love life.” 

“Ask J-Dog out. Stop thinking about it.” 

“He’s got Vanessa now.” 

“Bullshit. He wanted to go out for a night and she was really nice. She’s creepy and loves rock music. It was a nice match for him. He doesn’t love her. And he never will unless you can’t step up your game soon.”

“What should I do?”

“Coffee. And some words. You’re good at this.” 

The lead singer nodded slowly. 

“Maybe soon. But I gotta set things with Reese first … explain the situation to Scar … can’t wait for that to happen … but … I’ll do it … soon.”  
“Danny. Ask him out this year. You want him as you new year’s kiss the latest and you still need someone for the nice mistletoe …” 

“Shut up, idiot! I ain’t fucking nobody on the bus!” 

Johnny grinned. 

“I should laugh, but I’m actually really relieved …”

“As if you didn’t do it on tour …”  
“I’m not saying I’m innocent, I only don’t wanna hear you do it. You’re my lovely little brother, I don’t want you in any kind of relationship if I’m honest … you’re so young …”

“I’m older than you …”  
“Shhhh … I don’t care …”

-

When they came back, Charlie and Funny were laughing over this day’s riddle while DaKurlzz was standing at the counter, a glass of water in one hand and a painkiller in the other. 

“How’re you feeling?”

“Puked out.” 

Johnny chuckled and handed him the tea they had brought from the store, too. The drummer took it thankfully and started to heat up water, while pointing at the bunks part. 

“Don’t go there. Vanessa’s still over.” 

“Why can’t she go?”, Danny asked, trying to glare through the wall. 

“Because they are horny as fuck, Danny, that’s why”, DaKurlzz mumbled, going over to the couch to lay down again. He probably only stood up when J-Dog and Vanessa entered the bunk part. 

Johnny walked over to the other two rappers standing there, looking over their shoulders to catch a glimpse of the current riddle. Not that he would care to solve it, but it couldn’t hurt to read, could it?

-

_A woman shoots her husband, then holds him under water for five minutes. A little while later they go out for dinner - how can that be?_

-

“Oh like shoots him in the leg and leaves his head over water or something”, Charlie complained. 

“No, he’s a zombie or she goes out with his twin …”, Funny offered. 

“That’s stupid!”, the bandana rapper disagreed. 

“Your theory is too!”

Johnny sighed and shook his head, grinning smugly. 

“Boys, boys … there isn’t said something about shooting with a gun, right? What about a photo? What do you do with old camera photos?” 

Danny smiled, coming over as well. 

“Develop them. She developed the picture.” 

Charlie stared at the two with pure hatred in his eyes. 

“You boring fathers, I liked the zombie theory more … yours makes sense and is nice.”  
“Oh, I apologise for not thinking about Walking Dead first”, the lead singer chuckled.

“You better …”, Funny mumbled. 

“Or what?”

“I’m gonna punch your face in!”

Danny shook his head, his eyes sparkling with joy that Charlie guessed would bring them pure misery.  
“Is my name Glenn?” 

The Mexican jumped, pushing the blonde away. 

“Too soon! Way too soon! Always too soon!”

 


	5. 4. December

The next morning, Danny woke up to Johnny and J-Dog talking quietly in the lounge, discussing some tv show they watched. The lead singer was happy to see Vanessa was nowhere around and she wasn’t in Jay’s bunk either, the curtain had been pushed back. Without even saying something, Johnny pushed a full cup of coffee in Danny’s hands, grinning at him. 

“I don’t wanna deal with moody lion today, so I made you coffee as soon as I heard you waking up.” 

J-Dog chuckled, but the blonde shook his head. 

“Such a stalker.” 

The blue-masked rapper only shrugged, focusing back on the tv. 

“Be happy you get your coffee.”   
“I am.”   
“Then don’t call the police on me.” 

“Are you fucking kidding me? They would immediately arrest everyone of us anyways.” 

“What?”, J-Dog asked, not really listening to their conversation. 

“C’mon, man, like … weed, too much alcohol, insulting the officers, we would be in jail in seconds.” 

J-Dog shook his head, smiling. 

“Nah, we’re little angels.” 

In that moment, DaKurlzz entered, looking at the rapper with raised eyebrows. 

“If you are angels, what does the devil look like?” 

“You.”

The drummer flipped him off and sat down on the couch next to them. 

“What are we gonna do today?”

“I don’t know. We have nothing planned except for some radio interview in the afternoon. We could go to some club afterwards. Loosen up a little.”

“Totally! I’ll ask Vanessa if she wants to come …”

“So much about a boys’ night out. Soon it’s gonna start with the automatic 'we' …”, Danny grumbled when J-Dog got out of sight, probably to call his girlfriend. DaKurlzz shrugged. 

“As long as Charlie shuts his fucking mouth I don’t fucking care if one girl tags along. Don’t be so grumpy, Danny, just enjoy the time you have and drink away all your sorrows for a night.” 

“What a wise council.”   
“Fuck off!”  
“Love you, too.” 

Johnny shook his head. 

“Children stop it!”

-

The interview wasn’t very interesting, since the interviewer mostly tried to flirt with all of them, but only Charlie played along with her. All the questions were old and boring, only about their songs and why they were written, even though they had said it a million times. They were all happy when it finally ended. The interviewer waved them goodbye and left the bus again, making the band sigh in relief. 

“God, she was annoying!”, Funny exclaimed, leaning his head on Danny’s shoulder who nodded in agreement, pushing the Mexican’s long black locks out of his face. 

“At least she’s gone now!”, J-Dog chuckled, leaning against Danny’s other side making the blonde smile. 

“Oooh, Danny, you’re getting some, right?”, Charlie grinned, watching the three use each other as pillows. Johnny only raised his eyebrows at them. 

“You’re such girls.” 

“At least we’re hot”, Funny shot back, flipping the other rapper off. 

DaKurlzz opened the next door of the calendar to have a reason to ignore his weird band members. 

“Guys, there’s another riddle! And it’s a long one …” 

Danny chuckled at the drummer.   
“You’re such a child!” 

“At least I’m cute.” 

 

_A crime has been committed at Freemont Street. The main suspect is a man named Sean Baker. It was said that a man had been walking along the pathway when he was suddenly shot in the stomach._

_The suspect had brown hair, blue eyes and wore a baggy Armani suit just like Sean Baker’s. Sean was asked to tell the story from the beginning:_

_“Well,” said Sean, “I was just hanging around the park when I saw this man walking along the pathway. Suddenly, a guy came up from behind him and shot him! I ran away as fast as I could.”_

_The policeman asked him to give a description of the murderer._

_“He had a red mustache, red hair and a baggy Armani suit.”  
“This man is telling a lie”, the policeman said. _

_How did he know?_

-

The drummer chuckled and gave the riddle to the boys sitting on the couch. Danny frowned at the text. 

“Wait! If the man came from behind, why did he shoot the man in the stomach?” 

“Congrats! Your confusion solved the riddle …”, J-Dog chuckled, moving a little to get more comfortable.

“Well, if you’re all over Danny, I’m gonna break the rule!”, Charlie shouted and placed himself on Johnny’s lap. The rapper groaned, but didn’t push him off, until Charlie moved a little to get comfy and leaned back. Johnny immediately steadied him on only one leg, moving him again. 

“I was finally comfortable!”

“Yeah? Well, my package wasn’t!”

“Dickhead.” 

Johnny didn’t even bother to answer, but simply pushed the bandana rapper away.

“Ouch! Asshole!”

“You insulted me. Don’t expect me to be nice to you then!”

“Fuck off!”

“Hey! Both of you! We have children on the bus!”, Danny complained. 

“What children?”, Charlie asked, looking at the singer in confusion. Danny simply pulled Funny closer and grinned at him. 

“Little Funny is too innocent for your jokes.” 

“Funny is always stoned! Your child does drugs”, Charlie laughed, making the Mexican flip him off. 

-

Later that night in the club, everybody was just having a good time, drinking and dancing together. The only bad aspect for Danny was that Vanessa was there, but when she started talking to him he had to admit that she was a really nice girl. 

“So, Danny, I don’t know what I did to you, but I’m sorry”, she said after a while. 

He shook his head, smiling softly. 

“Nah, you didn’t do anything, but he’s like my little brother and I try to protect him. I wasn’t too sure about him bringing someone home from a club, immediately calling them his girlfriend.” 

Vanessa smiled back and patted his shoulder.   
“Well, don’t worry, I’m weird, but I’m not just looking for a one night stand or I’d never agreed to being with him. I don’t know him that well, yes, but I don’t want to hurt him in any way.” 

“I apologise for not totally trusting you yet, but you seem cool, so I’m gonna try not to glare you down all the time.” 

He didn’t know why he suddenly got so nice, but he guessed that he simply got affective from being drunk again. However, Vanessa didn’t seem to mind at all, hugging him. That’s when J-Dog came over to them. 

“Hey, I see you don’t kill each other anymore.” 

“Nah, I was a bitch, sorry. I was concerned about you, Jay …”, Danny mumbled. The other rapper smiled softly and kissed his cheek carefully. 

“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.” 

“I can see that …”, Danny chuckled, ruffling his short hair, before downing his drink and looking towards the dance floor. 

“Well, love-birds, I’m gonna leave you two alone and look out for Charlie, I just hope he still got his pants on.” 

J-Dog laughed and nodded, pulling Vanessa closer and kissing her tenderly on the lips. Somehow, even though he was still jealous, Danny didn’t feel angry anymore. Vanessa seemed like a really nice girl and if J-Dog wanted to date someone, then rather Vanessa than some weird bitch. 

-

Meanwhile, Charlie was on the dance floor, looking out for some girls willing to dance with him. Which ever girl he talked to, she started to look uncomfortable and walked away from him, one even after she slapped him across the face. Just about to give up and start drinking until he passed out, Danny appeared out of nowhere, smiling at him, before slinging his arm over the bandana rapper’s shoulder.

“Hey Charlie, what’s up?” 

“I don’t like this club …”, the rapper complained. 

“Oh really? And that has nothing to do with you being rejected by all the ladies?”

“Shut your fucking mouth, you moron!” 

“Ouch. Someone’s tense.” 

Charlie flipped him off and pushed past him towards the bar again. 

“No! Charlie …”, Danny jumped into his way again and when Charlie wanted to push him away again, he grabbed on tighter, hugging him. 

“Stop that affectionate shit, Danny!” 

“Damn, you’re so pissed … I’m definitely not letting you drink yourself to alcohol poisoning.”

For a second it looked like Charlie would try to fight him again, but then he nodded slowly and relaxed against the lead singer. 

“Why do they all hate me?”  
“Dude, we’re in the middle of nowhere, the ladies are weird, don’t worry about it. Maybe they’re all gay.”  
Now Charlie grinned.   
“That would be so hot.”   
“See … they don’t hate you, you just don’t have enough boobs.” 

The bandana rapper laughed and hugged the singer closer again. 

“Thanks buddy.”   
“Anytime, bro. Just don’t die while I check if Johnny, Funny and DaKurlzz have passed out yet.” 


	6. 5. December

When Funny Man woke up, he noticed the loud banging coming from the lounge part. Now, he didn’t expect his bandmates to be quiet in the morning, but usually J-Dog, Johnny and Danny, who were always up first, were mostly too tired in the morning to make a mess. Well, maybe Johnny when he was pissed, but Funny couldn’t remember the last time Johnny had really trashed a room or the bus. He usually went for a jog to cool himself off or hit one of them straight in the face. He knew that he would have to clean up the mess afterwards anyways, maybe with the help of Danny, but he wasn’t too keen on that. Danny and J-Dog were more the kind of guys who kept everything to themselves, kicked their shoes in the corner and bottled everything up. They wouldn’t dream of doing something aggressive like that. But Funny was sure that from the sound of it, the lounge was being trashed. 

Now becoming curious he stood up, walking up front only to see Johnny trying to hold back Charlie who was trying to punch a hole in the wall. J-Dog was sitting on the couch, trying to stop his nose bleed whilst Danny was trying to help him. DaKurlzz was probably still sleeping and nowhere to be seen. 

“What the actual fuck happened?”, Funny asked, raising his eyebrows at the situation. 

“Gimme a second …”, Johnny responded, finally able to hold Charlie down. 

“Charlie, what the fuck? Stop that shit!”

The bandana rapper went lump for a second, breathing heavily. Johnny figured it was safe to give him some space for a second, but Charlie used it to his advantage to break free and storm off in the back, locking the door behind himself. Johnny sighed in defeat and ignored the rapper, sitting down next to Jay to take a look at his nose. 

“You alright?”  
J-Dog nodded slowly, touching the bridge of his nose gently. 

“I don’t think it’s broken, just sore”, Danny commented, giving him an ice pack to cool the bruise. Funny Man stared at the door to the back part. 

“What is wrong with him?”

“I don’t know. He came here with a hangover, we gave him some painkillers, then J-Dog stood up to call Vanessa and Charlie flipped, bust his nose and started to freak out completely.” 

Funny shook his head, he could’ve imagined such a reaction from Danny in less extreme, but Charlie had nothing to do with J-Dog’s love life. However, he had the feeling that it wasn’t specifically about Vanessa, but the fact that Jay had a girlfriend. 

“Whatever, I’ll check on him”, the Mexican offered and walked through the bunk parts, before knocking on the back lounge door. 

“Charlie, let me in!”  
“Would it be enough for you to know that I’m sorry I bust Jay’s nose and that I don’t trash this room?” 

“I don’t care about what you did or what you’re doing. I wanna know what’s up with you.” 

“Nobody cares …” 

“That’s fucking stupid! We’re all your best friends! They might not ask you while you are busy punching them in the face, but we’re all worried about you, man!” 

“Why? I broke Jay’s nose!”

“Nope. Danny says it’s only sore. And even if, it wouldn’t have been Jay’s first broken nose, he can deal with it. He’s not gonna hate you for it, otherwise we all would have to hate Johnny. We know that you didn’t really mean to hurt him, but you have to tell us what got you so angry … we can’t help you if we don’t know the problem … just let me in, mate.” 

“I’m part of the problem.”  
“Yeah and I’m an angel, dude, we all don’t belong to heaven, doesn’t mean I care less about you.” 

There was a short break and Funny could hear the bandana rapper breathe for a second, before footsteps came closer and the door was unlocked, revealing a shitty looking Charlie to say at best. His eyes were sunken in, his head was red and his eyes showed nothing but regret. Shaking his head slowly, Funny entered, pulling the older in a hug. 

“Damn what got to you?”

“Just … I don’t know …”

Knowing better than to push him too far, Funny only lead him over to a couch, sitting down as well. Charlie shrugged, leaning against the Mexican. 

“I guess I was pissed that Jay went out for one night and got a fucking gorgeous girlfriend and I’m trying and trying and no girl will even look at me other than to flip me off or slap me.” 

“I don’t know how Jay got there so quickly either, but I guess we should just be happy that he smiles again.” 

Charlie nodded slowly. 

“Probably the hangover didn’t help at all.”   
“For sure. How about we just drink some coffee, watch some stupid comedy movie and laugh about all the problems couples in tv shows have.” 

Now the bandana rapper grinned again. 

“Sounds like a plan.”  
 “Great. You pick the movie, I’ll get the coffee and ask if the boys wanna join.”   
“Don’t they hate me?”   
“For the last time, they won’t.” 

With that Funny stood up again, walking up front to get the coffee as promised. 

-

“Is he okay?”, Danny asked, looking up from his phone for a second.   
“Yeah, he was just jealous that Jay got a hot chick in one night and he tries, but nobody even talks to him.” 

J-Dog nodded slowly, smiling softly. 

“What are you doing now?”  
“I’m getting coffee, he picks a stupid movie and then we’ll have a chill day I guess. You guys wanna join?”   
Johnny and Danny shook their heads, but J-Dog nodded. 

“Yeah, sure, just gimme a second.” 

-

When J-Dog entered, Charlie became pale immediately. 

“Jay … I’m so fucking sorry …”  
J-Dog waved it off, chuckling. 

“It’s alright, Charlie, not my first hit. I  know you didn’t really intend hurting me.” 

Charlie nodded slowly and moved over to make room for the other rappers. When J-Dog sat down, however, he didn’t leave any room for Funny so the Mexican simply laid down on top of both of them, grinning innocently when J-Dog groaned in pain. 

“Damn, you’re heavy.”   
“That’s my booty alone.” 

Charlie laughed, obviously completely calm again. 

“Yeah sure. That’s only the burgers you eat, my friend!” 

“As if you could talk.”   
“I’m not the one laying on top of you.” 

J-Dog shook his head at the two. 

“Stop it, I wanna watch the movie.”   
“We’ve all seen it a hundred times!”

“Well, it’s more interesting than your stupid bantering.”   
“Fuck you too.”  
“I’d love to, but I’ll do that later when you aren’t creeping on me.”   
“Ugh, image in my head!”, Funny complained, but Jay only laughed at him. 

“You started it, you gotta live with it.” 

-

After the movie, all three came back in the front lounge, where DaKurlzz was making soup or something while Johnny was sitting on the couch, reading, with Danny’s head in his lap. 

“What are you doing?”, J-Dog asked, getting himself even more coffee. 

DaKurlzz turned around to look at his band members, shrugging to himself. 

“Well, Johnny’s obviously reading something, I think it’s lord of the rings again and well, Danny’s taking a nap, but he was too tired to go into he bunks part for it.”

“He sick?” 

“No, I don’t think so. Only tired.” 

J-Dog nodded slowly, looking over  at the two, before glancing at Charlie again. He was once again standing over the advent calendar, pulling out the next riddle. By the end of the month he was probably a better detective than most others. 

-

_A man murders his wife with a knife in the car. Nobody is around to see this. He throws her out of the car being careful not to leave any fingerprints on her body. Next he throws his knife into a gorge where it will never be found. Then his goes home._

_An hour later the police calls him and tells him his wife was murdered and he needs to come to the crime scene. As soon as he arrives he is arrested._

_Why?_

-

DaKurlzz chuckled to himself and offered some soup to J-Dog who took it gratefully and sat down next to Johnny, who looked up from his book to glance at Charlie solving the riddle. Funny and Charlie high-fived each other suddenly, making Danny stir in his sleep, even though the blonde didn’t wake up. 

“Shh, Danny’s sleeping!”, Johnny hissed, making sure the singer was in fact still asleep. Immediately Funny and Charlie calmed down again, still grinning at each other. 

“What is it?”, J-Dog asked quietly. 

“That riddle is such a stereotypical plot for a show like CSI or NCIS. They never told him where the stupid crime scene was, but he still knows where to go … That screams guilty.” 

Johnny nodded slowly, obviously impressed by the smart side that Charlie and Funny were showing since they got to open the first riddle of the advent calendar. It really seemed to help them. 


	7. 6. December

Nothing was more hilarious to watch than Funny Man on a day that was mostly celebrated by young kids. Not only had he pouted until Danny got him a chocolate Santa, but he also sang every Christmas song that he could possibly think of. It was kinda cute, but also hella disturbing to watch for all the other band members. Not that they would usually think of him as normal, but on these days they all tried to keep their distance. Well, except for Charlie, who came up to him with a small present, wrapped in old newspapers. It wasn't the most beautiful present, still, it was definitely enough to make Funny’s grin explode. For a second Johnny was worried the Mexican would completely freak out, but he simply teared of the wrapper and stared at what was inside for a second, then he flipped off Charlie. 

“Seriously? A colouring book? Fuck you too!”

The others started laughing at the Mexican, but Charlie was worse than everybody else, almost going to his knees, failing to catch a breath. Not that it was rare seeing him laugh so hard, it simply meant that at least one of the band was pissed off most of the time.

So whenever Charlie laughed that hard, everybody else became careful, knowing that either them or the others were screwed. Really screwed. When Charlie made a plan for a prank, they knew they would all suffer from the consequences, at least because Johnny got into a bad mood or something. Moody Johnny was something nobody wanted to deal with, especially not now, while they were on a tour they didn’t like. Of course they liked to make fans happy, but they didn’t want to sacrifice their free time. 

This time however, Funny laughed it off, too, hugging Charlie and kissing his cheek a bit too sloppily for his bandmates to endure. 

“Ugh, get a room you two!”, Johnny shouted, covering his eyes. J-Dog and Danny glanced at each other before giggling like little school girls, while DaKurlzz shook his head, leaving the bus for a smoke. Everything seemed to be normal except for the fact that Funny Man, a grown adult, had gotten a colouring book.

-

Later that day, Danny decided that for the celebration of the day, they should go out for dinner. Granted, they didn’t go into the most beautiful restaurant, but Del Taco should be fine for them. Even though most of them slowly got tired of the food, it was the best way not to have to listen to Charlie complain. He became giddy like a small toddler whenever he only heard the name. For a long time the rest of the band wondered where they could find a therapist specialised for such a disorder. Probably nowhere if they couldn’t even find one in Los Angeles. It didn’t really matter though, because honestly, they still all would die for their friend. If he didn’t die first on alcohol and taco poisoning. In the end, they’d have to put the Del Taco logo on his gravestone and that would be the most hilarious tomb on the graveyard.

-

The most annoying part in the restaurant was that Charlie continued trying to flirt with the female waitress, but she didn’t react, only smiling politely at him while glancing at DaKurlzz once in a while. But everybody in the band knew that Matt was just as gay as a rainbow, even though he got angry whenever someone suggested it. They didn’t know why, maybe he was afraid of something, even though they obviously hadn’t minded J-Dog dating Deuce. Somehow they liked mocking the drummer more for apparently being not so straight.

“You’re not getting lucky with the girls here …”, J-Dog grinned, making everybody crack a smile, but Charlie of course didn’t let himself be told he wouldn’t get lucky. 

When their food came, it was brought by a different waiter, he took the chance immediately to flirt with him. This time, he didn’t stare him down, but blushed and smiled back, leaning down to whisper something back. For a split second, DaKurlzz looked pissed off, but then he shook off the feeling. 

As soon as the waiter disappeared, they all started to laugh.   
“So finally the time has come that you become so horny you try to pick up boys”, Johnny chuckled, ignoring the death glare he was getting in return. Not that he even noticed it, he was enjoying his food. 

“I guess your hand isn’t good enough …”  
“Oh please, Kurlzz, as if you wouldn’t jerk off at night!” 

“Not saying I’m innocent, I’m saying I must be better than you because I’m still satisfied.” 

“Ugh, fuck you!”  
“Isn’t that what I always do?”

“Since when do you have good comebacks, Kurlzz?”, Danny asked, totally confused. Usually the drummer would ignore stupid comments or flip Charlie off, but this time he obviously had some own cards to play. Not that Danny would mind not having to deal with a moping drummer. 

“Guys, stop fighting! You’re forgetting the magic of Christmas!”, Funny chimed in suddenly. 

“It’s not even Christmas yet, idiot!”, Charlie shot back. 

Johnny sighed, looking up from his food to stare at the both of them. 

“Really? Stop it children and eat. You have to finish it in under two hours if you want dessert.” 

“What dessert?”  
“We have tequila and vodka on the bus … you can choose.” 

Charlie chuckled. 

“Are you trying to tell me I wouldn’t get my hands on alcohol without eating fast?” 

“No. I gave that up a long time ago. I’m saying you can drink with the guys if you don’t piss us off now.” 

DaKurlzz shook his head. 

“Doesn’t he always piss us off.” 

Now J-Dog decided to clink himself in again:

“He pisses you off. That’s a difference. I kinda like it you’re the victim, it means I’m out of the danger zone.” 

“Okay, note to myself: make more jokes about Jay”, Charlie mumbled, only to be flipped off again. By now, he obviously ignored that. 

“You can’t just leave people alone, can you?”, Danny asked, grinning. 

“Nah, that would be boring …”

Johnny laughed and nodded slowly.   
“As much as I hate to admit it, this band just needs a stupid idiot.” 

“Thanks … wait … did you just call me a stupid idiot?!”

The blue-masked rapper shrugged his shoulders carelessly. 

“I honestly didn’t think you would notice …” 

“I’m not that stupid!”  
All the other band members simply glanced at each other, bringing the message across quite clear. 

“Fuck you guys!”  
Exactly that moment, the waiter came back, staring at Charlie with an amused look in his eyes. Now that the waiter was already there, Johnny decided to play the embarrassing parent card full on.   
“Hey, Charlie, didn’t you want to give him your number … don’t wait!” 

He actually managed to make the bandana rapper blush like crazy, but the waiter chuckled.   
“Well, if you want to, gimme a second and I’ll be back with my phone.” 

“I knew the whole town is gay!”, Danny whispered in Johnny’s ear, making him almost choke on laughter. It seemed to be true though, Vanessa obviously had to be a stranger. 

“Well if the town is gay … is that why Jordon is getting so free with his sexuality.”  
“It must be the crazy European vibe …”  
“We’re not in Europe …”

Danny shrugged. 

“Do I look like I paid attention in Geography?” 

-

When they arrived back on the bus, Charlie and Funny immediately made a run for the calendar again, while Johnny picked up Lord Of The Rings again and Danny and J-Dog went straight for the freezer, pulling out the bottle of tequila before offering some to DaKurlzz, too. Just as they had downed their first round of shots, grimacing at the aftertaste, even though they kinda got used to it by now, Charlie started to read the riddle aloud, even though he knew that most of the time, only him and Funny would care about it. 

 -

_A murderer is being condemned to death, but he can choose between three rooms: A room full of raging fire, a room full of assassins with guns or a room full of lions who haven’t eaten in years._

-

“Well, obviously the fire …”, Funny started. 

“That’s so stupid! You’ll die!”

The Mexican shook his head confidently.

“Fire can not kill a dragon!”

“Oh my God! Sure, you could go in a room with starved to death lions because they can’t survive without eating for that long, but yeah, of course, but your life in the hands of your not existent heritage from the house of Targaryen. You’re not a hot blonde chick, forget it!” 

“Do you only like her because she’s hot?”   
“Oh so you like her because of her weird brother or what?”   
“No. I like the dragons.” 

Charlie groaned in annoyance and started to hit his head against the cupboard. 

“You’re such a child.”   
“You bought me a colouring book!”  
“Because I knew you were!” 

Suddenly a book got thrown in their direction, making them both look towards Johnny.   
“You’re both toddlers. Shut up and let me read!” 

“Go in the bunks!”  
“You go in the bunks!”  
“That’s a high school comeback!” 

“That was, too.” 

J-Dog walked up to them and motioned for them to calm the fuck down.   
“Please, just … I didn’t even go to high school, so I can’t say what the bitch fights there are like, but honestly, I don’t care. Just let Johnny read, insult yourselves via text message, or come drink some alcohol with Danny, Matty and me. Just grow up, all of you!” 

“Alrighty mama Dog.” 

“That sounds weird.” 

“Okay, then gay dog? You like that better.”  
“Bi and you got it correct.”   
Charlie laughed.   
“Honestly, Jay, nobody believes you are bi.” 

“Vanessa …”  
“She’s nice. And hot. But I don’t think you like her like that.” 

“What do you know?”   
“Well, I see the way you look at her and I know the way you looked at Deuce and there’s a huge difference. Not the 'I’ve been hurt before and am a bit careful now' difference, but … I’d say you see her as a friend with benefits, you won’t last forever.”  
“Whatever. I’m not gay, though.”   
“Sure whatever, just … it doesn’t really matter, okay?”


	8. 7. December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit later today because the site was down when I came home, sorry. Thank you to all of you for keeping this project alive!

As soon as he woke up, Danny knew it would be a long day, because while Jay was still sleeping in his bunk, a  gap in the curtain showing his soft facial expression. Someone, probably Johnny, was already moving around making breakfast, so Danny didn’t hesitate to stand up and go in the front lounge, pausing when he saw the cold expression on the rapper’s face. Usually, they liked to avoid him when Johnny was pissed, but now it was too late and the blue-masked rapper already spotted him. 

“Are you going to watch me for a little longer or can I get you into helping me?” 

“Sure, sorry, still tired.”   
Johnny shrugged. 

“Don’t care.” 

“Someone’s moody.”   
“Just don’t. Can you just shut your mouth?”   
“Sorry”, Danny mumbled, walking over to the fridge to get out some toast. He decided that it was best not to fight back, but just let him be. Not that Johnny wouldn’t find another reason to be pissed then, but it wasn’t as likely as if he tried to actually talk to him. It was too early anyways, maybe he was lucky and Johnny would calm down later again. 

-

After eating in silence, Danny was more than happy when DaKurlzz stumbled into the lounge, making himself some coffee and only glancing at Johnny shorty, before rolling his eyes. 

“So, Danny-boy, whatcha up to?” 

“Dunno yet. Probably gonna skype with Scar later.”

“Nice, nice. Do you think Charlie will notice if I go shopping?”   
“Yeah, but who cares? Whatcha looking for?” 

The drummer shrugged, sitting down next to the singer. 

“Some dark shirts, maybe some jeans as well.” 

Danny nodded in acknowledged and downed the rest of his coffee. 

“Well, let’s see when the others wake up, too. Why are you up before Jay anyways?”   
“Oh, he’s awake. I saw him playing some game before.” 

“That bitch!”, Danny shouted loud enough J-Dog could hear. As a response he heard quiet laughing and some shuffling, then the rapper appeared in the doorway, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. 

“I’m cold.” 

“You getting sick, too, really?”, Johnny questioned, clearly annoyed. 

“No! I didn’t say I’m sick, I said cold. Note the difference!”, Jay shot back, not wanting to put up with that shit once again. 

“You playing the moody teenager again? Seriously?”   
“I’m not the one starting the fight!” 

“What makes you talk to me like that?”  
“Same question! I’m not your child, I don’t have to respect you just because!”   
“Don’t bring Ava into this!”

Taken aback, J-Dog stared at his band mate. 

“I didn’t …”   
“Oh, sure, now you’re pulling back! Fucking loser! You’re too scared to man up and break up with V!” 

“I’m not breaking up with my girlfriend because you think you know me better!”   
“Jay! How long have we been friends?” 

“Long enough for me to think you could trust me enough to have a girlfriend!”   
“I don’t! You’re gay as shit!”  
“I’m not!”  
“Guyssss …”, Charlie sighed, walking into the lounge, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “I was sleeping!”

“SHUT UP!”, both fighting rappers shouted at the same time, making him cringe. 

“Charlie, just come over here”, Danny offered, making room for the rapper on the couch where DaKurlzz and the singer where already sitting. 

“What is wrong?”

“I don’t know, but just wait this out”, Danny shrugged, opening up a can of beer while J-Dog and Johnny continued to glare at each other. 

“Are they …?”, Charlie asked quietly.   
“Jumping at each others’ throat? Yes. Definitely”, DaKurlzz agreed immediately.

“Is it about Deuce again?”

“Nope. Vanessa, I think. I don’t know. Don’t ask me what’s wrong with Johnny either”, Danny added, glancing at his two friends about to tear each other apart. He was worried that Johnny would shred any walls J-Dog had built up, because after Deuce, he had sworn to not let himself be hurt again, but everybody knew that this band was his heart, and every fight almost destroyed him. 

“Did Deuce break up with you because you said you weren’t gay, too?” 

“How dare you?!”   
“Boo-hoo, you wanna run to Danny? Do it!” 

“I’m not some weak chick that’s gonna fall any second!”   
“Really? You behave like one!”

“What are you implying?”  
“That you’re weak. What else does it sound like?” 

Before J-Dog could answer anything Danny jumped up and punched Johnny straight in the face, holding Jay back with one arm. As soon as Johnny let go of his hurting nose again, he glared at Danny, ready to go at him, but Charlie and DaKurlzz both held him in place. 

“You fucking asshole!”

“Calm down Johnny! I had to! Do you think I like to hit you? I’m protecting Jay!” 

“Danny, don’t …”, J-Dog whispered, trying to pull the lead singer back a little by his shoulder. 

“No, J, he hurt you. I’m not letting him just get away with it.” 

“You hit him. It’s fine.” 

“But you know what they say: psycho is worse than gore.”   
“I’m fine.” 

“You keep repeating that, but I can see different in your eyes.”

Now the rapper looked down, shrugging carelessly. 

“Danny, don’t mind it, just don’t. I’m okay, no need to make a mess out of it.” 

“Too fucking late for that!”, Johnny spat, ripping free from his bandmates’ grab, but he didn’t punch Danny, he simply stormed off the bus, slamming the door behind him. 

“Someone’s on his period”, Charlie mumbled, standing up to get himself another beer. He needed to drink something now and because he was pretty sure the rest of the band thought the same, he got them all some booze as well. When handing it over, he passed the calendar and took the new riddle along to the couch, where Danny was checking Jay over again and again. 

“Guys, I got something to take our minds off …”, Charlie announced, reading it aloud.

-

_A dead body is found on the bottom of a multi-story building. Seeing the position of the body, it is evident that the person jumped out of the window, committing suicide._

_A detective is called to look after the case. He goes on the first floor and walks into the room, facing the street where the body was found. He opens the window and tosses a coin out of the window. He keeps repeating that on every floor until the last one. Then he tells everybody it was murder. Why?_

 -

“Jay, what’s your guess?”  
J-Dog shook his head.  
“I’m not in the mood for solving riddles. Ask Funny.”   
“Where is Funny?” 

“I don’t know.”   
That’s when the door from the bunks opened and Funny entered slowly, looking around. 

“Everything good now? I heard fighting and didn’t want to get involved …” 

“It’s fine, Johnny’s gone. Read this.” 

“Gone?”   
“He stormed off. He’ll drink and pass out somewhere, then come back. I don’t care. Help me solve this riddle, I don’t get the coin thing.” 

Funny read through the text and nodded slowly.

“The coin is unimportant. He has to open every window. Who closed it?” 

“Could be the maid.”   
“Yeah, but if she saw him, wouldn’t she leave it open?”   
“Would she?” 

“You got a better idea, Charlie?”   
The bandana rapper shook his head and looked back at Jay again who was leaning against Danny, grabbing his hand for comfort while Danny held him close, whispering something into his ear. 

Suddenly J-Dog moved away a little, leaning forwards to kiss Danny’s cheek, mumbling a soft thank you, before standing up and fleeing into the bunks part, turning up the volume of his headphones so that they could all hear the sound of Papa Roach in the lounge part, but they decided to leave him to it. 

-

When he was sure they would leave him alone, J-Dog placed the headphones next to himself on the bunk and pulled out his small notebook, opening an empty page before scribbling the first lines of another lyric onto it. He couldn’t image them finding this book, his mind put on paper. They would put him in a psychiatry. Maybe he belonged there.


	9. 8. December

Johnny didn't come back the next morning, but this time, nobody wanted to look for him, scared of starting a fight with him again. They were all too tense at the moment to deal with him. So, even though the blue-masked wasn’t there, everyone was glaring at each other, avoiding any kind of conversation. Well, Danny still tried to calm everybody down again, talking to everybody, but knowing they weren’t too keen on it, so he kept it simple and short, not sharing unnecessary information with them. 

“Matty, can you pass me some coffee?” 

The drummer didn’t say anything, but gave the singer the coffee anyways. He was worn out, not aggressive. When J-Dog entered, Danny froze, staring at the rapper in shock who was as pale as a ghost. 

“Jay? You okay?”   
“Fuck off, Danny! As if you care …”

The lead singer took a step back, causing him to stumble against Funny Man who simply didn’t react at all. 

“What? I just asked …”  
“I heard you! I’m tired! Fuck off!”

“Okay …”, Danny turned around to see Funny raising his eyebrows at him. 

“What did you do?”, the Mexican mouthed. 

Danny simply shrugged, choosing to ignore the rapper until he calmed down again and flopping down next to Charlie to watch some TV. He really didn’t have to listen to J-Dog at the moment. 

“So Jay took Johnny’s spot?”, the bandana rapper asked, not turning away from the show. 

“Yeah. Let’s see what happens when Johnny comes back. We should buy bulletproof wests.”

Chuckling, Charlie nodded slowly, but that nightmare couldn’t become true, because without saying something, J-Dog left the bus, too. The rest of the band looked at each other and shook their heads, turning back to do whatever they were doing. It would be a long day again.   
“Where did he go?”, Funny asked, looking out the window. 

“Probably his girlfriend, what do I care. Maybe he finds Johnny somewhere”, Charlie shrugged, but Danny stayed quiet, not able to focus on anything. His mind was drifting off all the time. He didn’t know when the last time was that he had fought with Jay, but it had been a while. Probably when Deuce was still in the band and Danny was only touring along with them. He hadn’t wanted it to repeat again. 

-

**At Vanessa’s**

“Jay! What a surprise!”, Vanessa grinned when she opened the door, kissing her boyfriend on the lips softly. The rapper smiled halfheartedly and pecked her cheek, hugging her close to himself for a second before he entered her apartment. 

“Are you okay?”, she asked, wondering why he was so quiet at the moment. 

“Yeah, sure, I’m fine!” 

She raised her eyebrows at him, but let it go, pulling him into her apartment and placing him on the couch, right in front of her tv where some horror movie was playing. Then she cuddled up to him, taking his hand in hers while watching, but he pulled back quickly. 

“Scared to touch me now?” 

“No, sorry, it’s just … it was a hard day yesterday … I’m sorry.”   
“Don’t be sorry, idiot, just tell me what’s wrong.” 

“I got into a fight with Johnny and I don’t know, maybe he’s right, you know …” 

Vanessa shook her head. 

“If you were fighting it was said in the heat of the moment. You can start thinking about it for real when he says it during a normal day. Don’t listen to him on anger mode.” 

“But …”  
Before he could say anything against her, Vanessa leaned forwards to kiss him more passionately, this time he responded immediately and pressed his lips against her, pulling her as close as possible. It felt wrong, but at the same time completely right.

-

**On The Bus**

Johnny came back around noon, looking tired, but also calmed down. The tense feeling on the bus was dropping, when they normally went for lunch and tried to ignore the fact Jay was still gone. Johnny didn’t even bother to ask where his band mate was, guessing that if they all didn’t worry, he didn’t have to either.

“So, Danny, I guess I should really apologise for yesterday, I don’t know what came over me.” 

“It’s alright, it’s a shit time here without our families, I get it.”  
“You know I didn’t mean anything I said, right?” 

Danny shrugged, showing that he didn’t really care about it. Johnny smiled slightly and turned his attention towards Charlie who was throwing small papers at Funny’s head, even though the Mexican simply ignored him. DaKurlzz was enjoying the time he had without being Charlie’s victim for once. Everything seemed to be better at the moment.   
“Boys, did you already solve today’s riddle?”   
That’s when Charlie jumped up to race to the calendar, which left Johnny and Danny laugh at his frantic movement. Whatever drugs he took, they wanted a share. 

-

_A girl was attending her mother’s funeral when she met a man. She was intrigued and wanted to know him. Later she realised that she didn’t know his name nor number and she couldn’t find him again. A week later, she killed her brother. Why?_

-

“Ah, easy, so that the man would come back!”, Funny shouted, grinning proudly. 

“Congrats, psycho!”  
“What? Just because I’m great?”   
“No. It says that whenever somebody immediately knows the answer, that’s a sign for psychopathy.” 

“Or a sign of too many movies”, Johnny mumbled, making Danny giggle quietly. 

DaKurlzz leant forwards towards his both calmer bandmates. 

“Thanks, Danny, again. For keeping him busy.”   
“Any time, buddy.”

-

**At Vanessa’s**

“So … you gonna follow me or not?”, Vanessa teased, standing in the door to her bedroom, showing off her body, wearing nothing but dark red underwear. J-Dog looked up and grinned. 

“It’s unfair making me choose between you and my open beer.” 

“It’s mean that you have to think.”   
The rapper grinned, standing up and pulling her into his arms, kissing her again.   
“Maybe I heard girls like bad boys.”

“Probably a boy told you that.” 

“If you count DaKurlzz as a boy …” 

She laughed, starting to unbutton his shirt. 

“Do you?” 

“Nah, not really.”

He wanted to say more, but then she caught his lips again, so he stopped thinking, letting his mind (or more likely dick) choose, when he put his hands on her bare back, starting to fight with the bra clasp. She stopped and pushed him back slightly after a minute.   
“Really? You can’t open a bra?”   
“Can’t blame me. I stopped wearing them a while ago.” 

-

After a hot evening, J-Dog was laying in her bed, looking down at Vanessa’s sleeping form in his arms, pressed to his bare stomach. She looked beautiful, but he kinda felt bad, as if he was lying to her. Maybe Johnny was right, and getting a girlfriend was a bit too soon, but he was probably only heartbroken over Danny for a while, it would calm down again soon, would it? Now he was laying here, after some fun (because he couldn’t say that he didn’t like the sex) and stared at the ceiling. No matter how hard he was trying not to, he kept seeing Danny’s face in front of his eyes. Bloody imagination. He was sure he liked her, he had to. Danny didn’t love him, Danny was a lost cause. Vanessa … he could rely on her for now. She was pretty, she was nice and if he liked girls, she would be perfect. Wait … did he say 'if'? He meant 'because', obviously. Who would dare to say he was gay. He wasn’t gay. He couldn’t be gay. He had to take it like a man. Suck it up and swallow … uhm, just suck it up. He wasn’t gay. He wasn’t gay. He wasn’t gay. He wasn’t gay. He was gay. No! He was not gay. He was not gay. Argh, dammit, he was totally gay. And he had to talk to Vanessa about that. But that could wait until tomorrow, she was sleeping softly. Looking down at her, J-Dog took a deep breath, knowing that Vanessa would probably understand.


	10. 9. December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I didn't update yesterday, I accidentally didn't post it even though it was ready ...

When J-Dog woke up, he could still feel Vanessa's arms wrapped around him. For a second, it felt good, like it was the right thing to do, but then he started to feel sick. Danny's face popped up in his imagination again and Jay sighed, pulling Vanessa closer, hoping he could convince his mind that he wasn't into Danny. It was wrong, he shouldn't like the lead singer like that, but he couldn't help but feel jealous whenever Reese called, feeling like it should be him, asking how the tour was for Danny, when he'd be home and why he didn't say 'I love you' back. Danny never did and Reese complained every single time. And every time J-Dog grinned to himself, because the singer kept playing the game. He didn't understand why Reese kept asking, probably so that Scarlett wouldn't question anything. J-Dog loved the little girl and her crazy humour, she clearly came after her dad in her dorky ways. It was cute, no matter what both of them said. 

“Morning, Jay … why are you awake already?”, Vanessa mumbled sleepily, turning her head to look at him. 

“Dunno, I kinda woke up half an hour ago. Probably because my band would already scream their lungs out over some games or movies.” 

She chuckled quietly and nodded, cuddling closer to him. For a second Jay froze, but then he relaxed again, deciding he should tell her about his sexuality and break up with her later. He didn’t want to start a fight in the bed already, he was too tired to anyways. 

“What are you thinking about?”  
“If breakfast would be worth standing up”, he lied quickly, proud of his smooth cover up. Vanessa grinned at him and nodded, sitting up slowly. 

“Food sounds awesome, give me ten minutes.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous, babe, I’m making some pancakes, you go do your girl things or something.” 

“Do you even know where the pans are?” 

J-Dog smiled innocently and shrugged. 

“I’ll find my ways. Do you have everything for pancakes here?”  
“Definitely. You should find the fridge, flour and stuff are in the cabinet next to that.” 

“And the pans?”

“In the cabinet next to the oven.”

“Okay, then I should be fine.” 

He grinned, standing up, but stopping to peck her cheek before walking out the room, making his way into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. He felt like before he would break up, he should offer her a nice morning. 

-

**On The Bus**

“10 bucks they’re screwing at the moment!”, Charlie shouted, laughing when all the others grimaced at the mere thought of their bandmate having a girlfriend. 

“10 bucks he’ll come home single again!”, Johnny joined in on the betting. 

“Do you really think he’s that bad in bed?”

“No, but I still think he’s gay.” 

The bandana rapper started laughing loudly, winking over at Funny who didn’t notice, being too focused on trying to open the next riddle of the calendar. 

Now Charlie got annoyed and folded his arms over his chest, making him look like a toddler who didn’t get some candy - so basically himself. The rest of the band grinned and Funny, when he finally looked up, cracked up grinning widely, holding up the riddle. 

“Sorry, bro, I was kinda busy reading this.”   
“You read it without me?” 

“Chill and listen!”

“Isn’t it supposed to be Netflix and chill?”   
Funny chuckled. 

“Usually, yes, but I’m not fucking you, so no Netflix. Just hear me out now, okay?” 

-

_A detective who was about to solve a case about an oil gang, has gone missing and now one of the officers finds the last note: 710 57735 34 5508 51 7718._

_There are three suspects at the moment: Bill, John and Todd. Who did it?_

-

“No idea. I can’t see it, asshole! But try turning it around or reading it backwards. Heck, why not both. It’s clearly some sort of code like that.”

There was a short silent pause, then Funny grinned, walking over to ruffle Charlie’s hair.

“You’re pretty smart.”  
“What a surprise!”

-

**At Vanessa’s**

After eating breakfast, J-Dog got quiet again, glancing at the thousands of messages Danny had left for him. Vanessa shook her head, trying to gain his attention, but failing miserably. She quickly stood up and took his hand, leading him with her over to the couch where they both sat down.   
“Jay … I think we need to talk.”   
“Yeah …”

“I honestly believe that we aren’t going anywhere. And it’s because of you. Not that I don’t like you or something and you’re incredibly cute, awesome and what not, but you clearly aren’t into me.” 

“It’s not that I’m not into you …”   
“Then you’re gay.”

Taken aback, Jay scooted away, looking down in shame. But Vanessa didn’t seem to be angry at all, she only smiled softly at him.   
“Don’t look that scared, Jay, it’s okay. Honestly, I’m a bit surprised, but then again, you asked me out too quickly. Let me guess, you’re trying to get over Danny, that’s why he was so pissed. But I’m saying he likes you as well and you should make your move.” 

“You aren’t mad?”, J-Dog asked quietly. 

“No! Why would I? It’s not your fault he’s cute. But really, he got so jealous when you were with me …”   
“You don’t understand, he’s happy. He has a beautiful wife, and a young daughter. I can’t provide any of that.” 

Vanessa sighed, leaning back. 

“He has a daughter … I bet that’s why he doesn’t dare to ask you out …”

“No, he doesn’t like me either, have you seen me?”   
“Seen what? The scars on your wrist? Oh please, if you don’t like someone anymore because they aren’t flawless you will never find anyone.”  
“But …”

“Jay, no buts! Trust me, he wants to screw you and you want to screw him. Don’t make me play the matchmaker with inviting you two over dinner and vanishing.”

“Thanks for warning me not to go to dinner with you.” 

She laughed and leaned forwards to hug him again.

“Relax, I’m not gonna do that. Thank you for the great sex last night.” 

The rapper grinned and pulled her closer to kiss her one last time.

“Goodbye, thanks for not killing me.” 

“Don’t mention it.” 

J-Dog grinned and stood up, grabbing his jacket. 

“Hey, J!”

He paused and turned around to look back. 

“What?”   
“Why are all the hot ones taken or gay?” 

Laughing carelessly, J-Dog left her apartment and went back to the bus, mentally preparing himself to look  into Danny’s eyes again. 

-

**On The Bus**

When the door of the bus opened, everyone turned around to see J-Dog tumbling in, throwing his jacket in the corner.   
“Hey guys!”

“How was the sex in the morning?”   
“Dude, Charlie, what the fuck?”  
“You fucked didn’t you?”

“Yesterday yeah, but not today, we’re no animals.” 

Charlie grimaced and slowly pulled out his wallet and taking a ten dollar bill, but before he could reward Johnny, Jay continued talking: “And nothing’s gonna happen. We broke up.”   
“Are you kidding me? You’re costing me twenty bucks now!”

Johnny laughed, taking the cash and slang his arm around Jay’s shoulder. 

“That’s cause I know him better.” 

J-Dog pushed the bandmate away, grinning, before he sat down on Danny’s lap who hugged him close immediately. The lead singer looked … relieved? Maybe Vanessa had been right, maybe there was a chance for Danny and him. 

 


	11. 10. December

“If there are any more fights today, I’m gonna flip out!”, DaKurlzz groaned when he entered the room to Johnny and J-Dog staring at each other. 

“We aren’t fighting!”, Jay laughed, snatching Johnny’s coffee. 

“Well, now that you stole my caffeine, we might!” 

The drummer breathed out in relief. 

“You looked like you were ready to jump each other.” 

“Uhm, Jay, do you wanna go to my bunk?”   
“No!” 

Johnny turned to DaKurlzz, grinning innocently. 

“I don’t think we are, Jay’s not into me, I guess.”   
“So you two are good again?”

The blue-masked rapper nodded slowly, slinging his arm around J-Dog’s shoulders and leaning down a little to kiss his cheek. 

“We’re great.” 

J-Dog shook Johnny’s arm off and wiped his cheek, running over to DaKurlzz to hide. 

“Help me! He can’t control his gay.” 

“My gay?”, Johnny asked. “That means that you’re mine, too?”   
“No. I’m too cute for you.”   
“So you’re coming to me?”, Danny asked, chuckling, when he entered the room, making J-Dog blush badly. DaKurlzz and Johnny looked at each other and started laughing at the rapper’s expression, while Danny pulled him closer and stole his coffee. 

“Thanks for the drink!”   
“Fuck you, Danny!”

Johnny grinned at the lead singer.  
“Drink up, it’s my coffee anyways!”  
“Hey! When I take it you hate me, when he does you let him?”   
“Sorry, Jay, but Danny’s a little lion and I don’t wanna piss him off. He’s our golden beast after all.”   
“Oh, sure, butterfly!”  
“Don’t call me -!”

“What? Butterfly? But that’s what’s on your mask, isn’t it?”, J-Dog laughed, moving out of Johnny’s reach already just in case, but the blue-masked rapper only shook his head, smiling at him, before going to the kitchen part again to make himself a new coffee. 

No matter how much they fought some days ago, this day was okay, it was a Saturday and they had a show in the evening. Johnny was already pumped for it and looked forwards to calling Ava before, so he actually woke up in a pretty good mood. He still knew that later that day, he had to really make it up to J-Dog.

-

When Charlie and Funny entered the lounge together, they immediately noticed that J-Dog and Johnny were missing and only Danny sat on the couch with DaKurlzz, watching American Psycho for the millionth time. 

“Where is the rest?”, the Mexican asked, flopping down on the couch whilst Charlie went over to the calendar again, waiting for the next riddle. 

“They are eating lunch together, but they didn’t want us to tag along”, Danny explained, not looking up.

“So it’s a date?”, the bandana rapper grinned from the other side of the lounge, walking over to them with the next short riddle in his hand. 

“Have you seen the two? It’s totally a date!”, DaKurlzz joked back and glanced at Danny worriedly, but the lead singer didn’t listen to him anyways. 

Charlie chuckled and concentrated on the riddle again, letting Funny Man lean onto his shoulder to read along. 

-

_British police inspects a room where there are no windows, a door locked from the inside, no tables and it’s empty except for a puddle of water on the floor. They found the body of a woman who apparently hung herself, but they didn’t know how she had managed that and reach the ceiling. How did she die?_

-

“I know the riddle already, it’s an old one!”, Funny complained, leaning back again. Charlie only flipped him off. 

“Well, I don’t! So fuck off!” 

“Then what’s your guess?” 

The bandana rapper shrugged. 

“Dunno. Is it because of the tides?”  
“The tides?”  
“Well, the water rises and the walls aren’t waterproof, so she floats up, puts a belt or something on the ceiling and around her neck and when the tide goes down again, she hangs in the air.” 

The Mexican nodded slowly.   
“Damn, that actually makes sense … But no. It’s something else. Think again.”

“That was actually my only idea … what happened? Tell me, man! Unless you don’t know it.”   
“Of course I know! What do you think of me? She used huge ice cubes, but they melted already. That’s where the water comes from.”   
“You’re such an idiot!”  
“At least I knew the answer!”  
“Guys!”, DaKurlzz interrupted them before they could continue their bickering. “We’re watching a movie. Shut up or go in the back lounge.” 

“Alright, mum!”, Charlie shot back, grabbing Funny’s arm and pulling him out of the room, ignoring his protest about wanting to watch American Psycho as well. 

-

Meanwhile, J-Dog and Johnny were sitting in a bit nicer restaurant than usual, but still very casual, eating lunch together. 

“So why are we here, Johnny?”, J-Dog asked, clearly confused why he wasn’t in some food chain. 

“You know, I was a dick last time we saw each other and I thought I should probably make it up to you …”, Johnny admitted, looking down quickly. 

“Really? You dork. You don’t have do that. We’re good, man!”

“I know that you said that, but that doesn’t make me feel less guilty. So just be happy you get food.”   
J-Dog chuckled quietly.   
“Damn, you got me. Food!” 

The blue-masked rapper laughed quietly, happy that his plan worked.

-

**On The Bus**

When the movie was over, DaKurlzz wanted to put in another one, but looking to his side he realised that Danny had fallen asleep, leaned against the back of the couch. Chuckling to himself, the drummer switched off the TV, grabbing a thin blanket to place on top of the singer. Then he stood up, walking into the back lounge where Charlie and Funny were playing some card game. 

“What’s with Danny that you come to us?”, Charlie asked, clearly amused that DaKurlzz was with them. 

“Danny’s sleeping. I don’t wanna wake him because unlike you, I am a nice person.”   
“That’s because you’re gay.” 

“Fuck you too.”   
“Would you like to?”   
“Seriously? Have you seen yourself? I’ll tell you when I lower my standards, okay?”   
Charlie grimaced, but then grinned like crazy.

“You’re being a naughty boy now, Matty!”

“Whatever.”  
The bandana rapper wanted to reply something, but then Johnny and J-Dog walked in, both looking refreshed and calm, not at each others’ throat again. 

“Why is Danny sleeping? Is he sick or something?”, J-Dog asked, looking at DaKurlzz because he didn’t trust the others to know anything helpful. 

“I don’t think so. We were watching American Psycho and he just dosed off.”   
“Ah okay, he’s only bored, well …”

Charlie grinned at his band mate. 

“Leave it up to J-Dog to worry about our little lion!” 

Johnny shook his head and sat down next to the bandana rapper.

“He’s just making up for your careless idiocy.” 

“I’m not an idiot!” 

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I meant douchebag.”   
“Seriously? Don’t start another fight, Johnny, I was just enjoying the silence”, DaKurlzz complained, but nobody listened to him anyways. Before anything could escalate, J-Dog excused himself to wake up Danny to make sure he was fine, so DaKurlzz followed his example and simply went to get a shower. They both just hoped that when they came back, everybody would still be on the bus and nobody was dead. 

 


	12. 11. December

“What are you doing up already, Jay?”, Johnny asked, already knowing the answer. It wasn’t new that J-Dog stayed up all night when he suffered from his insomnia and wrote some lyrics. Usually not love songs …

“Nothing”, the rapper responded a little too quickly, slapping his notebook shut and putting it in his pocket before Johnny could possibly see anything. 

“Couldn’t sleep again?”   
“No. I’m staying up all night for fun. I like being tired.”

“And I’m Santa Claus.” 

“Oh, I didn’t know that …”

Chuckling to himself, Johnny sat down next to him, switching the tv on to watch the news. He knew that pushing J-Dog wouldn’t do any good, so he didn’t even try and acted like everything was normal. When J-Dog was busy later, he would take a look at the written lyrics, hoping that it wouldn’t be too bad. 

“What do we have to do today?”, Jay asked, too tired to look on the schedule himself.

“Nothing. It’s a free day. You can try to sleep later …”   
“Why do you want me to sleep? You need me to be out for some time?” 

“It’s not about you being unconscious, but about you staying healthy. Am I not allowed to worry about you?” 

J-Dog shrugged, leaning against his band mate and closing his eyes.

“That bad?”   
“Nah, I can sleep better when somebody’s around …” 

“We’re on a tour bus … there’s always everybody around.” 

“I don’t know … it helps …”

“Okay. If you can sleep better that way … You know you could always just talk to us about stuff like that, we could help you.”   
“Don’t wanna bother you guys …”   
The blue-masked rapper shook his head and placed his arm around the younger one. 

“Sometimes I think you’re an idiot.”   
“Sometimes I think you’re really fucking Jordon.”   
“Ugh, that’s disgusting!”

Not caring anymore, J-Dog simply shrugged and moved his head so that he got more comfortable. 

“Good night, Jay.” 

-

“Didn’t he get some sleep last night?”, Danny asked when he entered the front lounge, glancing at the two rappers on the couch. Johnny shook his head slowly, looking up from the book in his lap. 

“What are you reading?” 

“What J-Dog wrote.” 

Danny sat down next to the blue-masked rapper and looked at the text himself.

-

_I broke it all and I'm put to the test_

_Put your hand to mine and feel this emptiness_

_There's no beat in my chest, 'cause there's nothing left_

_No it ain't goodbye, it's a last caress_

_What's another dream, you can hardly sleep_

_Can you believe bad things only happen to me?_

_God knows one day you will finally see_

_That scars will heal but were meant to bleed_

_Do you realise I would lie for you?_

_Please have my last breath, I would die for you_

_I know I'm no good but my heart beats true_

_You know I'm gonna fight, though I might be scared to lose_

_You took me in and I fucked it up again_

_An empty promise, no I won't pretend_

_'Cause in the end we need someone to solve em_

_Nobody can fix me if I'm part of the problem_

-

“That sounds like a hard night for him …”, Danny mumbled quietly, not being able to tear his eyes away. Next to him, Johnny nodded slowly, glancing at the rapper sleeping on his shoulder. 

“I think I’ll hit the pharmacy for some sleeping aids for him. I don’t care if he wants them or not, I’m not letting him go through this shit alone just because he lays awake for hours.”

The lead singer nodded and carefully switched position with Johnny, being careful not to wake J-Dog up. The rapper stirred for a second, then he cuddled up to his other bandmate and continued to sleep peacefully. 

“Take care of him”, Johnny mumbled, ruffling Jay’s short hair before putting the notebook on the small coffee table and leaving the bus. 

- 

Funny, Charlie and DaKurlzz entered the lounge and fell silent as soon as they saw J-Dog’s closed eyes. 

“He needs some pills for that …”, the drummer exclaimed, making himself some coffee, before offering to the others. 

“Johnny’s hitting the store for some sleeping aids.” 

“Can you still hold him or do you need help?”, Funny asked, walking over to Danny. 

“Nah, I’m good. He’s comfy.”   
The Mexican chuckled. 

“Whatever you say, bro.” 

“Guys, we got a new riddle to solve until he wakes up, he won’t want to hear it anyways …”, Charlie grinned, still being incredibly excited over the calendar.

-

_A man was found murdered on Sunday morning. His wife calls the police who questions the wife and the staff. They are given the following alibis:_

_the wife - sleeping_

_the butler - cleaning the closet_

_the gardener - picking up vegetables_

_the maid - getting the mail_

_the cook - preparing breakfast_

_Immediately, the police knows the murderer._

- 

“What day did you say?”, Danny asked, looking over at Charlie who smiled at the thought of the others participating again. 

“Sunday.”   
Funny laughed and shook his head. 

“There’s no mail on Sunday.” 

Danny nodded approvingly and looked down at J-Dog again, before glancing at the notebook. DaKurlzz followed his gaze and narrowed his eyes. 

“Did he write again?”  
“Yeah. Some pretty dark stuff …”

“Is that why Johnny decided it was enough? He’s scared, isn’t he?” 

The singer nodded slowly, but before he could answer, J-Dog started waking up slowly. 

“Whatcha talking about?”, he asked sleepily, looking up at his bandmates, frowning when he saw the worried look in their eyes. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“I don’t know. You tell me …”, Danny replied, pointing at the notebook. J-Dog looked away, internally hating himself for not putting it away less noticeable when Johnny had entered. 

“I was tired. It’s nothing.” 

The lead singer nodded slowly, pulling the rapper closer with one arm. 

“You know, I really wanna believe you, but I don’t know if I can. However, Johnny is on his way to get you some sleeping aids and I don’t want to hear you don’t want them, you’re taking them, because apparently, when you don’t, you’re thinking about this crap.”   
“It’s not crap.”  
“Yes it is. It’s total bullshit. You don’t need to be fixed, my friend, you’re awesome the way you are.”   
“Danny … don’t …”  
Before J-Dog could say anything else, Danny leaned down to kiss his forehead. 

“No. Jay, I don’t want you to ever think that way. And if that means forcing sleeping pills into you, I’m gonna do that. And your problem is that you know Johnny will help me.” 

“Why?”  
“You’re part of the band, mate, part of the family. We ain’t letting you alone that quickly.” 


	13. 12. December

Johnny woke up to Danny shouting, but looking around he noticed that nobody else was up yet. Slowly, J-Dog sat up, locking eyes with the older rapper. 

"What's going on?" 

"I don't know. Nobody is awake. And Danny doesn't just fight with the driver." 

"We should check ...", J-Dog suggested. Johnny nodded quickly, pushing the covers off his body and quietly opening the door to the lounge. 

Danny was  on the couch, phone pressed to his ear and as pale as a ghost, hand shaking. 

"But ... what are we gonna tell her?", he whispered, looking down at a cup of coffee, a bottle of whiskey next to it. After a short pause he spoke again: "We stayed together all this time for her sake and now that I already lost everything I kept away from not to hurt my daughter, now you come to break it off?" 

J-Dog and Johnny looked at each other before Johnny took the whiskey away and Jay sat down next to the singer, startling him out of his trance. 

"I don't care if you're sorry. Why are you calling now?" 

If he wanted to, Jay could've tried to listen to Reese's answer, but from the look on Danny's face he didn't want to know. She probably found someone else already. 

"What's his name?", Danny asked weakly, leaning against Jay's shoulder. 

"Let him know that if he hurts you, I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch!" 

Somehow Danny managed not to lose his temper, but J-Dog guessed that he was only too tired to argue more and wanted to rest his already strained voice. 

"Goodbye. I'll just get my stuff when I get home, you can have the apartment ... I'll just move in with Jay or something." 

The singer looked at the rapper expectantly, hoping he would allow it. Jay only smiled softly and nodded, even though he was screaming on the inside. His crush wanted to move in with him ... but J-Dog's joy was overwritten by his fear for Danny. He knew the singer liked bottling feelings up and this time, it wasn't only anger over some comments or stage fright. He had to keep a close eye on him.

"Are you okay?", Jay asked quietly, watching as the singer curled up to his side. 

"I'm fine ... we didn't ... we haven't really been a couple for a while now ..." 

"Bullshit! Something's bothering you, I can tell! Spit it out, buddy!" 

"You know, I kept myself from loving someone or even kissing someone for years only for Scarlett's sake and Reese finds some guy and immediately starts dating him ... what did I restrict myself for?" 

"Ugh,  that's awful! What do you think will Scar think of this?" 

"I don't know and I probably will never know ... Reese will keep her because being on tour all the time, I can't take care of her and I won't be able to see her because of some lame excuses ..."

"That's stupid, Danny, your daughter will ask for you!" 

"Will she?"

"Reese can bring home someone else, but he's not you, and Scarlett comes after her daddy in every sense. She will miss you and not just take somebody else as her new father. Damn, she's not letting you change her stuffed animals, why would she let Reese change her family?" 

J-Dog smiled a little proud of himself when Danny didn't find a good response. 

"And she still knows your phone number by heart and can call you any time", Johnny added, sitting down on Danny's other side and patting his shoulder sympathetically.

The lead singer smiled softly and nodded, closing his eyes while leaning against J-Dog. The younger one tried his hardest not to look happy he was the chosen pillow and not Johnny, but he failed miserably, causing Johnny to laugh quietly to himself.

“What?”, the lead singer asked drowsily, not moving from his position. 

“Nothing. Just a message from an old buddy of mine …”, the blue-masked rapper lied quickly, watching J-Dog to breathe out in relief. He wouldn’t dare to out Jay at the moment, not now, when he really didn’t need another fight or even bad mood on the bus. 

Usually, Danny wouldn’t be fooled by such a flat lie, but right now, he didn’t give a fuck. He just wanted to enjoy the warmth J-Dog was offering and forget about the trouble from the last minutes, the last days, the last years. All the time of putting up with being single being ripped apart by Reese without a care. Granted, she didn’t know what Danny had been through all the time, but that was no reason to let her role model guard fall down immediately when she found the first guy.

But of course it had nothing to do with her getting scored before him. Definitely not. 

-

When the rest of the bus came into the lounge later, they raised their eyebrows at the scene. Danny was asleep on J-Dog’s chest, hands clinging to the rapper’s shirt. J-Dog had his eyes closed as well, but still worked his hands through the singer’s hair comfortingly. Johnny was still sitting next to them, drinking coffee, reading a book and glance over to his bandmates every so often.

Noticing the rest of the band, he placed the book on the coffee table and stood up, motioning for them all to be quiet whilst he walked over to them. 

“What’s up with them?”, DaKurlzz asked in a hushed voice. “

“Kinda hard time, right now … Reese broke up with Danny this morning … let him get some rest here.”

That’s when everybody froze, staring at the older rapper. 

“You mean what? You’re joking … you must be joking!”, Charlie mumbled quietly, not able to believe Danny broke up with his wife, after they were so sure about keeping it going, if only to protect their daughter.

“I wish I were, Charlie, I wish I were … but no. Jay and I woke up to him shouting at her, but well, I don’t worry about the breakup itself. He didn’t love her for a while now. But I think it’s mostly that Danny had to keep all of his gayness inside because he didn’t want to hurt Scar, but she grabbed a guy and broke it off immediately.”

“What should we do know?”, Funny asked carefully. 

“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know. But probably we should act as normal as possible and let Jay handle most of it. Danny trusts him. Danny loves him. I can take care of Jay if he breaks.” 

Not knowing of any other idea, the others just nodded, starting to prepare breakfast for themselves, but not able to stop their worried glances towards the two on the couch.

“What’s today’s riddle?”, Charlie asked suddenly out of nowhere, only to be met with Funny’s cold stare.  
“Really? I get that you’re trying to find some peace in here today, but asking for riddles really is sort of weird, don’t you think? A bit tactless.” 

The bandana rapper shook his head. 

“Dude, I’m trying to act as normal as possible, but apparently you don’t wanna help me with that.”

Johnny smiled at the idea and nodded approvingly. 

“I hate to say it, but this motherfucker is right. Please, just continue your stupid lives at the moment, Danny is asleep anyways.” 

Now Funny nodded slowly, too, while DaKurlzz tuned out any following drama by retreating into his bunk with his headphones. For a second Johnny wished he could simply hide, too, but he knew that everything would burn in a few hours if he even closed his eyes for a second. It was too dangerous to leave little children or men who acted that immaturely, alone.

Before anyone could even move, Charlie grabbed the calendar to read the next riddle, quietly this time not to wake the dozing two. 

-

_A wealthy man lives alone in a small cottage. Being partially handicapped, he had everything delivered. The mailman was delivering a letter on Thursday when he noticed the front door was ajar. Inside he could see the man’s body lying in a pool of dried blood._

_When the officer arrives, he finds two bottles of warm milk, Monday’s newspaper, a catalog and unopened mail. The officer suspects foul play … why?_

-

Funny smiled, obviously already knowing the answer, but Charlie frowned and shook his head. 

“It’s hard. I don’t know …”, he mumbled quietly, but Funny Man slung his arm around his shoulders and leaned down on his eye level. 

“Well, if you want help, let me know.” 

“Fuck off I don’t want your help!”  
“Sure, princess, call me if you change your mind.”  
“Are you offering me sex?”  
“Hell no! Sorry, dude, but you aren’t my type. I’m actually not gay or bi or pan or demi or anything but heterosexual.”  
“Of fucking course …”

Flipping the Mexican off, Charlie stomped away towards the back lounge to think about the riddle some more, ignoring his fellow rapper until evening. When he was out of the room, Johnny leant closer to Funny and whispered quietly: “It’s the newspaper delivery guy, right? There’s only the newspaper from Monday, but it’s Thursday …” 

Funny Man nodded, grinning brightly, before replying: “When Charlie gets it, he’ll hate you for knowing it first. He will take hours … Let’s see if he gets it before the show …”


	14. 13. December

After J-Dog breaking it up with Vanessa and Reese breaking up with Danny, Johnny was sure that the two bros would get together immediately, but they didn’t do anything. The lead singer slept until lunch and afterwards until soundcheck, all whilst J-Dog stayed by his side, not daring to leave. For a second in the evening, they had doubted they would sleep in separate bunks, but apparently that had been one step too far for the both of them. Johnny shook his head at the thought, he had a bet ongoing with Charlie that J-Dog and Danny would fuck before the new year. He didn’t want to lose - but he didn’t think he would either. 

-

The lead singer woke up not too long after Johnny had and trudged into the lounge, barely looking up before making his coffee without which he would never be able to talk to the rapper normally. He had to keep up his normal character for Johnny not to become sceptical. Not that Johnny would notice anything before he was fully awake, but Danny sure as hell didn’t want to risk it.

So after he finished drinking his caffeine, he excused himself for a shower, making sure to turn on the water, before looking over to where the razors were laying on the sink. 

-

“Hey, man, where’s Danny? He isn’t in his bunk …”, J-Dog asked when he saw Johnny sitting at the table. 

“He said he would take a shower, but he should be out soon, that was thirty minutes ago.”   
“I can’t hear water running.”  
Johnny listened for a second, then he nodded. 

“Maybe he’s done already …”   
“No, Johnny, you don’t understand … when I woke up twenty minutes ago, I didn’t hear water running.”

The blue-masked rapper frowned and stood up slowly. 

“You think …?”  
“I think I’ll go have a check on him. You wait here … I’ll call you when something happens.”

-

Opening the door to the bathroom, Jay froze at the sight of Danny standing under the shower that was turned off, shaking badly. Blood was running down his left arm, dropping onto the floor. 

“Danny!”  
The singer slowly looked up, tears forming in his eyes while he watched J-Dog sprinting over to him, pressing his hands against the cut to stop the bleeding. 

“Why, boy, why?”

Unable to answer anything, Danny stared at the floor again, slumping his shoulders. He was as pale as a ghost, showing just how much blood he had already lost. Stopping himself from saying anything more, J-Dog helped the older man to sit down on the tiles, leaning him against the wall. Immediately, Danny curled up on himself, starting to cry quietly. 

“Hey … it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay!”

“How?”, the singer whispered back. 

“I’ll make sure of it, Danny, no matter what you need. Seriously, anything. And you will never be alone, not for a second. I don’t care if you wanna take a piss or a shower, I’m tagging along.”

Slowly the singer managed to smile a little, pressing his forehead against J-Dog’s shoulder. The rapper immediately held him closer, turning his head to call out for Johnny to get him some bandages and anti-bacterial wipes.

-

When Johnny entered the room as well, he was shocked at the image, but quickly recovered, handing J-Dog the materials before kneeling down next to Danny as well. Whilst Jay was busy opening the bandages’ packaging, Johnny took of his shirt to press it on the wound. 

“No need to undress …”, Danny mumbled, chuckling before rising his uninjured hand to wipe away some of the tears that were still falling. 

“Don’t talk, idiot, you’re turning me on”, Johnny joked back, knowing that he shouldn’t point out the disappointment he felt because Danny really didn’t need to hear about anything negative at the moment. Additionally, he didn’t want to wake up the rest accidentally. What happened in the bathroom, should probably stay in the bathroom, just like he had never told anyone about Jay’s suicide attempt. 

“Why are you helping me?”, Danny suddenly asked quietly. 

“Because you’re part of our team, mate and we ain’t gonna let you go that easily … seriously, what would we do without you? We already lost our singer once, a good friend, don’t make us go through this again, please! We need you! I need you! What is Jay supposed to do without you?” 

The singer shrugged, resting his head on his knees. 

“Danny, please! I know what it’s like to feel like you should give up. I know what it feels like to see the end of everything you lived for. But you know, I am here now. I’m here because Johnny picked me up from the ground. And I will not give up until I’ve done the same for you. I’m not in your mind, I don’t wanna be, but I will be here for you until the end of time. So don’t you dare leave me.” 

Without answering directly, Danny lifted his arm to let J-Dog bandage it, before crawling onto the rapper’s lap. Johnny smiled softly, watching Jay wrap his arms around Danny’s body as if scared to break him. Well, he probably really was.

-

After a while Johnny stood up to leave the two alone and make sure the others didn’t storm in suddenly. When he came out the bathroom, DaKurlzz was already sitting at the table, raising his eyebrow at the rapper who exposed his chest to the world. They were all not too strict with clothing, but what worried the drummer were the blood stains on his jeans. 

“Dude … what the fuck happened?”, he asked pointing at the blood.

“Nothing.”   
“You come out of the bathroom with bloodstained jeans. And where are Jay and Danny?” 

For a second, Johnny was stunned, but then he quickly grinned at the drummer and shook his head. 

“Danny hit Jay’s nose on accident and it started bleeding, I guess I got some on my jeans … Danny’s still helping him out.”  
“That looks like a lot of blood.” 

“You know Jay’s nose …”  
Thankfully, the drummer accepted the lie completely. 

“True … you could think he’s got an artery in there …” 

“Where are Charlie and Funny?”

“Oh they went out for groceries.”   
“Without solving the riddle first? What has the youth of today become?” 

“Of course they solved it … check it out …”  
-

_Adam killed his wife in front of so many people. Yet, no one has the power to accuse him of the murder and send him to prison for his crime. How is this possible?_

-

“Really? That’s all they had to do today? What a boring riddle! He’s an executer and his wife has been sentenced to death. That’s so old, Ava could solve it!” 

DaKurlzz chuckled quietly, nodding. 

“Just because Charlie’s IQ isn’t that impressive …”  
“Damn, why don’t you stand up to him more often, you’re good.” 

The drummer was about to answer something, when Danny and J-Dog entered the lounge, the singer still leaning onto the rapper heavily. 

“Bloody nose, huh?”  
DaKurlzz didn’t even have to look twice to see the bandage around Danny’s wrist. The singer looked down in shame, but the drummer wasn’t even thinking about pointing out the obvious. Instead, he stood up and walked over to hug him tightly, making sure not to hurt the older one. 

“Coffee?”

Danny nodded tiredly and let go of DaKurlzz again, grabbing onto J-Dog’s hand to stabilise himself a bit again. The rapper quickly helped him to the couch where Danny soon doze off, after finishing the coffee DaKurlzz brought him and only shook him awake every so often to make sure he didn’t pass out completely. He wasn’t sure about first aid stuff, but he thought he read somewhere that the person shouldn’t fall asleep, or was that about concussions? Oh well, J-Dog was sure it could help anyways, so that Danny wouldn’t get too tired from sleeping all the time. By now the rapper was sure to help Danny get over it.


	15. 14. December

The first plan J-Dog could come up with was of course, getting wasted in a club. Knowing that he wasn’t to trust in making sure Danny wouldn’t sneak out the back or something, the rapper invited the rest of the band, too. Being the weird party guys they were, Charlie and Funny tagged along immediately, not thinking anything of it, but Johnny and DaKurlzz were being suspicious of the plan. They knew alcohol did not solve any problems. When they told J-Dog however, the rapper shrugged them off, claiming that drinking milk wouldn’t help much either.  
So, being easily outnumbered by the others, they decided quietly to stay sober to keep an eye on things, but come along, because being on the bus wouldn’t do them any good at all. 

-

“Do we need anything before we go to the club?”, Johnny asked, already grabbing his jacket and heading towards the door.  
“Yes! Wait!”, Charlie shouted back, unfolding the day’s riddle to solve it before he got wasted until morning. 

-

_A couple went for a climbing trip. Only the husband comes back and claims his wife slipped off and died. The local sheriff arrests him saying: “The travel agent called. You murdered your wife.”_

_The man did not inform anybody about his trip. How was the sheriff so sure?_

-

“Well, Funny, do you know that one, too?”  
The Mexican grinned, but shook his head, leaning over Charlie’s shoulder to take a look at the riddle himself. 

“Hah! This time I can beat you!” 

“Maybe … depends on if you can actually solve it …”

The bandana rapper flipped his friend off and frowned, but then he cracked the biggest smile the others had seen on his face in days. 

“I got it! You lose, asshead!” 

Funny Man only grinned and moved out of his reach in case Charlie wanted to hit him once again. It wouldn’t be the first time …

“Oh really, enlighten us!”, Danny chuckled, walking past. J-Dog, Johnny and DaKurlzz raised their eyebrows at the singer, but of course they were happy that he seemed to be better again. But Jay didn’t trust the happy face at all, they all knew Danny was a great actor.

“Great you asked, Danny-boy … he probably didn’t buy a ticket back for his wife from the beginning.”

“Fuck you, that’s probably right”, Funny complained, making Charlie grin. 

“Don’t get jealous, darling.”

“I’m not jealous.”  
DaKurlzz frowned at the two and pulled Charlie back. 

“Can we go now?”

Danny and J-Dog looked at each other knowingly. 

“Yeah, yeah, Matty, why so impatient?” 

“He’s jealous”, Danny joked, noticing the weird look the drummer was giving him. 

Before the situation could escalate, Johnny shouted at them to hurry up.

-

In the club, J-Dog and Danny walked straight over to the bar, ready to drink and drown their sorrow, while Charly and Funny headed to the dance floor and Johnny situated himself and DaKurlzz in a calmer corner, making sure to see everything important.

“What do you think will happen? I’m kinda worried to be honest”, Johnny mumbled, looking at the others. 

“Hopefully Jay and Danny will just get so drunk they’ll hook up. Then Charlie and Funny can pass out and …”

“Of course, Matty, you don’t want Charlie and Funny to hook up, too.”  
“Why would they?”

Johnny grinned. 

“Please, dude, I know you have a crush on Charlie. You know, I don’t care, it’s fine, but you’ll need to act on your feelings.”  
“Like Jay did?”  
“At least Jay told Danny how he felt. Yes, he got turned down, but look at them. Just man up and tell him.”  
“And listen to more gay jokes?”

For a second Johnny thought of a good answer, but lacking one he shrugged. 

-

While Johnny and DaKurlzz were talking, Jay and Danny had already downed some shots and started hitting the dance floor, starting to show their moves exactly next to Charlie and Funny, but then they started to move further away. The alcohol was messing with their heads and before J-Dog knew what he was doing, he started grinding against the singer. To his own surprise, Danny didn’t push him back, but held him closer, breathing in the mix of aftershave and sweat. 

"You smell like sex." 

"Why? You want some?", Jay joked, pressing his lips onto Danny's.

What started as an innocent kiss soon turned into a heated make out session with no restrictions, both lost in the music. Therefore, they didn't notice when Charlie snapped a picture of them both, before tapping Jay on the shoulder, making him turn around. 

"What?"

"You're cute together, you know ..." 

Danny chuckled and shook his head.

"We aren't together ... we're just dancing." 

"Dancing while making out you mean? Look, it's cool, but don't expect me to unsee what I just witnessed. You don't even understand ... my OTP is finally making out!!"

"Charlie?"

"Yeah?"

"Fuck off!"

The bandana rapper smiled innocently at the singer and nodded, heading back towards Funny who shot his two band mates a quick thumbs up, before being hidden by the crowd again. 

-

At the same time, Johnny and DaKurlzz were looking for the two, stopping short when they saw the two men kissing passionately again. 

"You know, maybe we should leave them alone for a sec ...", the drummer offered, shaking his head like a mother who caught her daughter with her boyfriend. Johnny nodded immediately, grinning widely. 

"Maybe, Kurlzz, everything isn't as bad as it seems ... at least for tonight." 

-

It was only midnight when J-Dog dragged Danny out of the club, waving goodbye to Johnny, before heading back to the bus. He was wasted, Danny was wasted and he knew that under no sober circumstances he would have the courage to even think about what he was about to do. But right now, he was a horny teenager again and next to him stood a hot girl, granted Danny, but damn, J-Dog didn’t care if there were no make-up stains on his pillow in the morning. At the moment, Jay hoped that when they woke up the next day, Danny wouldn’t hate him forever, but oh well, he was drunk, he didn’t think about consequences. 

-

Coming back onto the bus, the four guys looked around, not seeing any trace of the other two for a second, until Charlie looked down on the floor, picking up a pair of boxers that he was pretty sure belonged to Danny. 

“Guys …”

Everybody turned to look at him and raised their eyebrows. The bus usually wasn’t really clean, but the lead singer was known for keeping his mess in his suitcase. 

“Well …”, Johnny mumbled, holding up Jay’s shirt and jeans that were laying not too far away.   
“Alright, I’d say don’t go to the bunks part right now”, DaKurlzz suggested, falling down on the couch.  
“But where are we going to sleep then?”

The blue-masked rapper shrugged and sat down next to the drummer, making himself more comfortable, before closing his eyes. 

“I’d say, doze off here and the last one awake has to carry everyone to bed.” 

“That’s bullshit! You always fall asleep first, but nobody can lift you!”, Funny complained, sitting down on Johnny to prevent him from dozing too quickly. Not that the older rapper really minded, he simply wrapped his arms around the Mexican’s waist, pretending it was his daughter who suddenly gained a lot of weight, and tried to fall asleep again. 

“Johnny?”, Charlie asked after some minutes, but he got no reply. 

“Really? He’s already sleeping?”, DaKurlzz asked, not being able to believe it. 

“Apparently. I don’t care. We can just leave him out here and go to the bunks. I don’t think Jay and Danny are still doing something, they’re too quiet”, Funny exclaimed, opening the door to the bunks part and breathing out in relief when he saw J-Dog’s arm hanging out of the curtains once more. 

“They’re done.”  
“Let’s just hope they don’t regret it in the morning.”


	16. 15. December

When Danny opened his eyes, he immediately froze when he felt a warm arm on his bare chest. He couldn’t remember anything after downing shots with J-Dog and starting to dance with him, so he had no idea where he was or with whom. Looking down carefully he recognised the tattoos on Jay’s arm quickly, jumping out of the bunk in a second only to see he was wearing nothing but boxer shorts. Grabbing a t-shirt, he ran into the front lounge, where Johnny and Charlie were watching a movie while Funny made breakfast. 

“Where’s Kurlzz?”, Danny asked shakily, trying to remember the last night and hoping the drummer could help him out. 

“Getting cigarettes. Why?”, the blue-masked rapper asked quickly.

“Nothing … Just … what happened last night?” 

Charlie and Johnny looked at each other. 

“You and Jay started drinking, started dancing, started making out and then went back here. I don’t know what happened here, but you were asleep together when we got back.” 

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

“Because no matter what you say, we know you like Jay more than a brother and if it takes alcohol to get you two a bit closer again, then we don’t mind. You broke up with Reese, you’re good to go out with him. If you’d still been together with her we would’ve interfered, don’t worry, but at the moment, I don’t see any harm in my bros making out and having some fun.” 

The lead singer looked away for a second, before sitting down next to Charlie, who slang his arm around his shoulders immediately.   
“You’re gonna be okay. He probably doesn’t even remember it.” 

“I drank half of his shots as well …”  
“Okay, then he does remember, but you two didn’t have the courage to get that close sober, so you know, I still don’t think it’s a bad thing …” 

Shaking his head, Danny shrugged and decided to focus on the comedy movie playing instead of losing his mind over what he should have done and what he had done. 

-

Opening his eyes, J-Dog noticed that Danny wasn’t next to him anymore. He hoped that Danny had simply gotten up for breakfast or because Johnny wanted him to help with something, but somehow he was sure that Danny didn’t remember anything from last night and simply ran away. 

Not being able to change it anyways, J-Dog got up, too and came in the front lounge, where everybody was sitting eating breakfast and watching movies. Danny was curled up against Charlie, hands shaking, but looking at the screen J-Dog noticed that it was a comedy film and nothing to be scared of. 

“Hey! What’s up?” 

Everybody but Danny looked at him and smiled softly.   
“Nothing much. Just watching movies. Wanna join?”   
The rapper nodded at the Mexican’s offer and for a second he thought about sitting next to Danny, but then he saw the look on Johnny’s face and sat down next to the blue-masked rapper. As soon as he was put, J-Dog raised his eyebrows at Johnny, quietly questioning why he had to sit down there. 

“Danny’s still kinda shaken up - give him some time …”   
Understanding the message immediately, J-Dog leaned back, nodding slowly and trying to focus on the movie, but without any luck. Danny hated him. Jay knew that giving him some time would mean giving him a lot of time alone and the rapper wasn’t sure if he could deal with that. He didn’t want Danny to get out of his sight, but at the same time, Danny seemed to despise him. 

“How bad is it?” 

Johnny shrugged, glancing over at the singer before answering: “I don’t think it’s too bad, I guess he’s mostly scared and surprised, still in a bad mood because of Reese and not ready to jump in a relationship right away again. But like I said, I don’t think he hates you, I think he’s just scared.” 

Breathing out in relief, J-Dog leaned back again, now able to watch the movie without freaking out about Danny and their friendship. It was normal for Danny to be shaken up after waking out almost naked in a bunk with your best friend, J-Dog knew that from experience with Deuce. But after a while it had worked out great for years, before Deuce turned against the band and J-Dog had to let him go. He simply hoped that Danny would stay around to calm down again and not fuck up the band again, although J-Dog was sure that poor innocent little Danny (who wasn’t that innocent after some drinks) wouldn’t hurt anyone on purpose like Deuce had done. So … that was hopefully safe, now Jay had to make sure he didn’t fuck it up himself. 

-

After over an hour, Danny still hadn't said a word to J-Dog and the rapper was starting to become worried. Apparently, Charlie noticed as well, because he was whispering into Jay's ear: "You know the rule ... you don't wanna seem too eager, so you call after three days."

"This isn't calling a stranger you met in a club."

The bandana rapper shrugged. 

"Is it that much different? You fucked when you were both drunk and now at least you want to see him more often ... the only difference is that you two were friends before."

"We ... this wasn't supposed to happen ..." 

"So you didn't like it?"

"I was drunk!"

"Yeah, drunk, but not wasted ..." 

J-Dog sighed, pulling his knees up to rest his arms and his head on top of them. 

"What so you think? It was fucking awesome!" 

"Then why are you so sad?"

"Damn it, Charlie, Danny hates me! What do you think that feels like? Do you think I like that?"

"Jay, take a deep breath. I know being rejected sucks but I don't think Danny is able to hate you!"

"He avoids me!"

Charlie glanced over to the singer who was chatting with Johnny. At the first sight, he looked okay, but when he looked closer, he saw the pain in his eyes. 

"Who was the bottom?", he asked quickly, making J-Dog growl quietly.

"Why do you care?"

"Please ... I have an idea and you gotta tell me if it's good."

"If it concerns the bottom I don't like it."

"Just tell me!"

The rapper looked down for a second, giving away.

"You, Jay?!"

"Yes. What? Shut up!"

"No it's just that Danny looks like he's in pain ... if he topped he shouldn't be ... I think he doesn't hate you, he's simply hurt. By Reese probably. Maybe he is scared of Scarlett if she finds out. That doesn't look like hate, it looks like a cry for help.”

“Of course it does. But it’s your help he wants. He doesn’t need me anymore.”

At that moment, Charlie could’ve strangled his bandmate very slowly, just because he couldn’t stand watching him beat himself up. J-Dog needed to forget the struggle and enjoy life if only a little bit again. 

“I can talk to him.” 

“What?”   
“Jay, I can talk to him. Ask him what’s going on. I can play your wingman, dude.” 

The rapper only stared at his friend in complete shock, not able to say anything. So of course, instead of waiting for J-Dog to think of a good answer, Charlie continued: “You know, you’re one of the team, so I’ll do anything for you. All that bros before hoes stuff.” 

J-Dog chuckled quietly and nodded.  
“That would be great.” 

“You got it coming, mate, I’ll talk to you later.” 

-

“Hey, Danny!”

The lead singer turned around to look at the bandana rapper coming up to him, immediately tensing up.   
“What’s up?” 

“Can you help me? I can’t solve the riddle and I really don’t wanna ask Funny …” 

Obviously relaxed that Charlie wasn’t asking any sex questions, Danny grinned and nodded, following his band mate to the calendar to take a look at the riddle. 

-

_“Who shot her?” cried Rogers as he rushed into the hospital three minutes after his ex-wife died from a bullet through her head._

_“Just a minute, Mr. Rogers,” said Professor Stiggins. “We’ll have to ask you a few questions-routine, you know. Although divorced for the past six months, you have been living in the same house with your ex-wife, have you not?”_

_“That’s right,” replied Rogers._

_“Had any trouble recently?”_

_“Well, yesterday, when I told her I was going on a business trip, she threatened to commit suicide. In fact, I grabbed a bottle of iodine from her as she was about to drink it. When I left last evening at seven, however, telling her I was spending the night with friends in Sewickley, she made no objection. Returning to town this afternoon,” continued Rogers, “I called my home and the maid answered.”_

_“Just what did she say?” inquired Stiggins._

_“‘Oh, Mr. Rogers, they took poor mistress to St. Ann’s Hospital abbout half an hour ago. Please hurry to her.’ “She was crying, so I couldn’t get anything else out of her; then I hurried here. Where is she?”_

_“The nurse will direct you,” said Stiggins with a nod._

_“A queer case, this, Professor,” said Inspector Kelley. “These moderns are a little too much for me, I’m afraid. A man and woman living together after being divorced six months!”_

_“A queer case indeed, Inspector,” mused the professor, “and you’d better detain Mr. Rogers. If he didn’t shoot her himself, I’m confident he knows who did.”_

_Why did the professor advise the Inspector to detain Rogers?_

_-_

“It’s too long, I can’t focus on a whole book …”, Charlie complained, making Danny grin like a little child when he read through the riddle again and again. Then he shook his head. 

“That’s such a standard thing once more … I mean, the maid only said the woman was in the hospital, not why. He still asked who shot her in the beginning.” 

Charlie groaned. 

“Why are you so smart?”  
“Because I’m not you.” 

“Asshole.”  
Danny only laughed and turned to go away, but Charlie stopped him.   
“Wait! One more thing!”

“What is it?” 

“Do you hate Jay? Because he’s really worried about you …”   
The lead singer looked down for a second, but then shook his head. 

“I need some time, but I don’t hate him. Tell him to give me a day or two.” 

“Noted.”

“And Charlie?”   
“Make sure he doesn’t hurt himself. Promise me.”   
“You take care of yourself and let Johnny or someone help you, I will have my eyes on J-Dog, don’t worry.”

“If you wanna take care of him, I should worry more, shouldn’t I?”  
“Fuck off!”


	17. 16. December

Once again Johnny woke up to shouting in the lounge, rolling his eyes in annoyance. This tour wasn’t bringing them closer together at all, because they were tired and seriously wanted to go home again. 

Listening to the fight for a while, Johnny was able to tell it was between J-Dog and Danny. For a second, the blue-masked rapper was happy that the two were talking again, but couldn’t they do it quieter?

Becoming pissed off because he couldn’t sleep anymore, Johnny decided to get up, slit them up for a second and make some coffee. He was going to show them what they would get for annoying him. He would also make that clear to Charlie later, but at the moment the bandana rapper was still asleep and no matter how angry Johnny was, he didn’t want to deal with a tired Charlie, so he left him alone. 

-

“I told you, Danny, I’m sorry!” 

“You weren’t as wasted as I was … why did you do it?” 

The rapper paused for a second, before answering: “You seemed to like it … I wasn’t completely sober either … man, I don’t know, I thought that maybe you wouldn’t hate me.”

“That is so stupid! I … what is my daughter supposed to think of me?”

“Scarlett will probably think you’re gay …”

For a split second, Danny started to smile, before Johnny entered, making both men freeze. 

“Jay, Danny, I’m happy you two are talking, but I’m sick of your loud drama. It’s five a.m., tone it down a little.”

“Johnny …”   
“Don’t Johnny me! I’ve had it with your teenage bickering, your fighting, your sad faces all the time! Either you make up or ignore each other! Stop annoying me!”

Before the two could answer anything Charlie followed into the lounge, apparently woken up by the shouting as well, but still grinning brightly. 

“The lovers are being told the truth!” 

“Oh, you better shut your fucking mouth, Charlie! You and Kurlzz are even worse! Yes, he’s childish for being angry at you, but is there really no way you can stop the fucking jokes?” 

“But it’s funny …”  
“No, it isn’t! It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!”

“You haven’t heard a lot then …”  
“Shut the fuck up! You’re making jokes on Deuce’s comedy level by now!”

Everybody froze, staring at Johnny in shock. Nobody ever talked about Deuce, especially not Johnny who besides J-Dog had suffered the most from his personality change. 

“You …”   
“Yes, I did say that. And you know what? I’m not even sorry!”

With that, Johnny stormed out of the lounge back into the bunks part, flipping DaKurlzz off who had just opened his eyes and looked out from behind his curtain.

- 

“What did you guys do to him?”, the drummer asked when he went to make himself some breakfast. 

“I think he had too much of us and not enough of his family … he’s … our drama is getting on his nerves”, Danny explained, glancing over to J-Dog who did anything not to meet his eyes. 

“Yeah … so he’s good with Funny …?” 

The rest of the band looked at each other, nodding approvingly at the thought. It was true, Funny Man was the only one to keep out of any trouble as well, making sure the band didn’t kill each other. The childish member simply wasn’t serious enough to get into that drama. 

“So what are we supposed to do?”, J-Dog asked. 

“Easy, when Funny wakes up we ask him to check on Johnny, but I think if we go after him now, we’re getting murdered and you and Funny can solve the next riddle in your calendar”, Danny suggested, before walking away towards the fridge to get himself some food (and totally not to avoid speaking to Jay more). 

Of course, Charlie and DaKurlzz noticed the true intention immediately, and J-Dog also looked suspicious of the quick task Danny looked for, but none of them said anything, while Danny prepared himself some cereal. 

- 

Only three hours later, Funny Man woke up and entered the lounge, wondering why everybody else was awake and apparently already done with breakfast. 

“Why are you guys awake?”   
“So first, Danny and Jay were fighting, then Johnny was fighting with the two, then Johnny was fighting with Charlie and then I woke up when Johnny stormed off”, DaKurlzz stated, ignoring Funny’s raised eyebrows.   
“You’re suckers for drama, aren’t you?”   
“Well, Johnny apparently isn’t …”

The Mexican nodded slowly and sat down next to Danny on the couch. He noticed quickly that everybody kept looking at him expectantly.   
“What do you want?”   
“Can you talk to him? You’re the only one not involved in all the drama …”

Funny Man shrugged and nodded, standing up to go in the back lounge, where Johnny was probably still sitting, dwelling in his own thoughts.

- 

“Johnny?” 

“Go away.”  
“They’ve calmed down again, you know? It’s safe now …”  
“At the moment.” 

Funny Man shook his head.   
“C’mon, mate. We all know you miss your daughter and your beautiful wife, but please, it’s just we’re all tense and it leads to fighting. And Reese broke up with Danny, that’s your drama right there. You have to admit that it’s kinda understandable.” 

The blue-masked rapper frowned. 

“Yeah, I know. Doesn’t mean I like it though.” 

“Nobody expects you two. But you freaking out doesn’t make anything better.” 

Johnny didn’t say anything as an answer, knowing that he would lose any argument. 

“Call Asia. Then you won’t be as shaken up and maybe you can come back to us then.”   
“Thanks man. For putting up with me.”   
“It’s alright. That’s what I’m here for. Now call her before I force you to.”  
-

Funny Man only left the rapper alone when he picked up the phone and started calling his wife. The Mexican immediately went back to the others who were looking at him again. 

“He’ll be fine. He’s calling Asia now … He’s just tense.”   
The rest of the band nodded and offered him the last seat on the couch, next to J-Dog. 

“So we wait?”, Danny asked. 

The Mexican nodded and leant back, looking over at Charlie.

“Did you read today’s riddle already?”   
“Nope.”

“Great. You wanna?” 

The bandana rapper nodded without hesitation and stood up to get it. He still noticed how Danny glanced at J-Dog before scooting over to him again, leaning against him. J-Dog grinned and slang his arm around the singer’s shoulders, while Charlie watched them like a proud mother. 

-

_A lawyer argued for $1,000,000 damages based on the following claim: His client went to an art museum, where he saw a painting of Marie Antoinette on a guillotine. He fell asleep and dreamed of the painting. At the museum’s closing time, a guard tapped him on the neck just as he dreamed of the guillotine beheading Marie Antoinette. The tap provoked immediate cardiac arrest and a fatal heart attack immediately following, because he associated the tap with the guillotine blade._

_The judge dismissed the case. Why?_

-

“Damn, who the fuck is this Marie Antoinette? Ménage a trois, croissant … should I know her?”, Charlie asked aloud, making the other four stare at him in shock.   
“That’s the wife of the french king Louis XVI! You know, the one with the cake …”, J-Dog exclaimed, obviously impressed by what he knew even without ever going to high school. 

“What cake?”   
“About the starvation of her people, she basically said that if they didn’t have any bread, they should eat cake.”   
Charlie grinned. 

“I know that’s evil as fuck, but that really sounds like me. If there’s no bread, I’ll have to eat candy, I’m really sorry. But I’m not starving.”  
Funny Man glanced at Charlie’s stomach and nodded.

“Yeah, starving won’t be your problem.”

“Fuck off!”   
“Love you, too!” 

The bandana rapper grinned and sat down on Funny’s lap, making the Mexican groan in pain.   
“What did you eat lately?” 

Not answering, the rapper dropped to the side so he was half-laying on DaKurlzz’ lap as well. The drummer shook his head, but didn’t push him off immediately. Of course not.

“Why are you so nie?”, Charlie asked.   
“Because I’m too tired to argue.”   
“Gayyyy.”

This time, the drummer didn’t say anything, but only shook his head and hit Charlie in the stomach.   
“You’re the gay one.”  
“Am not.”   
That’s when Johnny came back, looking at the scene in front of him.   
“You’re all gay as fuck.”


	18. 17. December

Johnny should have known that shouting at them wouldn't do much, but he had to try. At least they couldn't say he didn't state his opinion very clearly. More likely too clearly. Now, he felt more relaxed again, able to ignore the angry come backs DaKurlzz shouted at Charlie. Whoever said that yoga would be a solution, was wrong, violence brought the satisfaction and therefore, relaxation into his life again. At the moment, he frankly didn't give a shit that the rest of the band except for Funny were huge drama queens at any given moment. 

- 

After being shouted at by Johnny, DaKurlzz hoped that Charlie would leave him alone for a bit, but that of course didn't happen. Why would it? Why did the drummer even think for a second that Charlie's personality would change overnight? 

He hadn't even finished his breakfast yet, but had listened to more jokes on him than the whole day before and he knew it wasn't going to stop suddenly. This was Charlie he was talking about, and if not even teenage bullies were able to stop their shit when being repeatedly told to, why would he? The bandana rapper probably still didn’t believe these jokes would actually hurt the drummer, but they did. Of course the others didn’t understand why DaKurlzz was so affected by them, especially because he didn’t mind them before, when Deuce was still in the band. His reaction to the stupid jokes didn’t have to do anything with the old lead singer, but mostly with the drummer’s discovery of a little thing called love. Back then he had been a stupid teenager, thinking the crush would go away easily and didn’t worry about it, but by now he knew that life wasn’t that simple. Not concerning love, not concerning hate, not concerning anything.

“Hey, bitch!”, Charlie called out, making the drummer turn around, before the rapper started giggling like a teenage girl talking about her secrets. 

“What?” 

“I’m just wondering, would you even feel something if I hit you straight in the face? Or is your gay sparkly soul protecting you?”   
“Well, I wasn’t the one flirting with the waiter …” 

“You gotta admit, he was hot though!” 

“No, he wasn’t! I’m too decent to talk about that shit to you.”   
“So you’re too shy to tell the truth?”   
“Fuck off, Charlie, just fuck off. Or go fuck that waiter if he was so hot.”   
“Nah, he wasn’t my type, I’m just stating he was hot.” 

“Yeah, look at all the fucks I give.” 

Seeing Johnny enter, Charlie froze and shut his mouth instead of answering. 

“Please, kids, calm down … no need to be so bitchy …”

“Wait … you’re not …”  
“I’m cool for today. Don’t test the limits though, I can’t promise it will stay this way. But at the moment, I have more important things to worry about … where’s coffee and where’s food?”

-

The fight didn’t simply end with Johnny breaking them up for a second, no, the minute he was out the bus to busy himself for a while, Charlie and the drummer were at it again. Only this time, it wasn’t about DaKurlzz’ sexuality, but the next concert. 

“I told you, I don’t wanna go out there! Not when I have to listen to you again!” 

“Please, then don’t go! What do I care? We have another drummer and Jay can scream! We don’t need you!” 

As soon as he said that, Charlie regretted it immediately. He wanted to … well, he didn’t know what he wanted to do, but he sure as hell didn’t mean to hurt him. Apparently, DaKurlzz didn’t know that the bandana rapper wasn’t serious, because he was standing up and sprinting out of the bus, not even looking back or waiting for Charlie to stutter an apology. 

-

Danny and J-Dog didn’t dare to ask what had happened when Johnny came back, exposing Charlie’s lie that the drummer had followed the blue-masked rapper. Only Funny Man didn’t want to know anything, just leaving the bus claiming to search for the other band member. 

“So, what the fuck happened?”, the lead singer asked, staring at Charlie like a mother who scolded her child. 

“I don’t know, we were fighting and I might’ve said something stupid, and then he stormed off.”   
“So the usual? Or did you say something worse than always?”, J-Dog questioned on, not believing the drummer would suddenly react that differently. 

“Well, I might’ve told him to bugger off because we didn’t need him …”

“Oh my God! How could you?!”, Danny exclaimed, ready to hit his head against the wall and only held back by Johnny, who was simply too shocked to say anything. 

“It was in the heat of the moment!”   
“You’re fighting all the time! There’s no heat anymore!”, J-Dog disagreed, pulling out his phone and trying to call the drummer, without any luck. DaKurlzz probably had turned his phone off already or just ignored the call. Not that J-Dog blamed him for it …

-

Two hours later, DaKurlzz and Funny Man were still gone, but Johnny had told everyone on the bus to try and keep calm, so Danny had started to listen to music, J-Dog was playing his bass in the back and Johnny was reading in his bunk. Charlie was sitting alone in the lounge, staring at the calendar and debating whether or not he should wait for Funny or solve the next riddle himself. 

After some minutes of hesitation, he decided that Funny could solve it later by himself. 

-

_A lady named Monica was found shot and the detective already had a list of suspects : Rooney, Torres, Dabid, Messi, Ronaldo._

_The killer is a fan of detectives and leaves notes at various places._

 

_# The first was found in a drawing room._

_# The second was found in an art room._

_# The third was in a bed room._

_# The fourth in an ice-cream room._

_# The fifth at the desk room._

 

_All of the notes read the same thing, 'The clues are where you find the notes.' Still , nothing was found anywhere._

_The detective paused for a moment and then arrested the killer. Who was it?_

_-_

“That’s easy …”, he mumbled to himself, “even I can solve that.” 

Even though nobody was listening to him, he built up some tension to make it more interesting, before whispering: “It was Dabid. The beginning letters from the rooms.” 

“You know that nobody cares, right?”, Johnny asked, stepping into the room.

“Why are you here?”

“I heard you talking to yourself. Thought I might check on you.”   
“Why do you care?”  
“You know, I don’t care what you said at the moment, you have to find a solution with Matty there. You’re still in my band. You’re still one of my best friends. So I might as well check on you when you start talking to ghosts.” 

“You don’t have to, I know I was a dick.”  
“Great you get the obvious. Like I said, wait for DaKurlzz to talk about that with you, but you seem to be okay other than talking to the walls.”  
“You just said I was talking to ghosts.”  
“I don’t care who you’re talking to. None of my business.”

“Matty will hate me forever anyways.”   
“No, I won’t!”, DaKurlzz stated, coming through the front door and looking at the bandana rapper, Funny Man following close behind. 

“Really?”  
“I won’t hate you forever. I will hate you for a while, though, so don’t even start. Fuck off!” 

“Love you too!”  
“Didn’t sound like that this morning!”  
Knowing he didn’t have the right to complain about the drummer’s current mood, Charlie didn’t say anything, but leaned back and flipped his band mate off, focusing on the TV show Johnny had started watching. He knew that he had lost DaKurlzz for at least a day, but he was okay, knowing he didn’t lose him forever. And he would try to make sure he never would.

 


	19. 18. December

The next day, everybody just hoped that there wouldn’t be any more fights, and most of the band were also ready to hold themselves back in favour of a calm day. But of course, just not starting anything new wasn’t a solution for everything that had already happened. So nobody in the band was surprised, when DaKurlzz didn’t want to eat breakfast or lunch with them, staying in his bunk listening to music. When Jay brought him a bottle of water, he drank that, but he didn’t ask for anything. He wasn’t that upset anymore, he just didn’t want to take the risk of being mocked all over again, so he stayed by himself. 

-

“Do you think he’ll come out tomorrow?”, Funny asked, looking back to the bunk part when they came back from lunch downtown. 

“You know him, he’s gonna be too hungry … Matt might be pissed, but he definitely won’t starve himself”, Johnny mumbled, shrugging carelessly before fishing himself a can of beer out of the fridge. 

“I’m not gonna wait for gay drummer in there, I’m not gonna let him ruin my mood!”, Charlie exclaimed, opening up the next riddle without even glancing towards the bunks. 

“You should be the only one worrying, because you started all this shit!”, Danny accused the bandana rapper, but he didn’t continue the argument, not caring enough to let it destroy his day.

“Well, Danny-boy, I don’t. DaKurlzz is old enough to take care of himself.” 

With that being said, Charlie focused completely on the riddle, tuning out the others and any sound. 

-

_It was a dark stormy night and a couple were in a car racing madly through a foreign city. The car broke down and the husband had to go get help from someone who spoke his language. He was afraid to leave his wife alone in the car so he pulled up the windows and locked the car before leaving. When he came back, the car was in the same state as he had left it but his wife was dead, there was blood on the floor and there was a stranger in the car. What happened?_

-

“What do you think, Funny?”  
“Uh, how about a convertible? Pulling up the windows wouldn’t help.” 

“Yeah, driving in a convertible with the deck open when it’s raining … real clever, mate!”, Johnny chuckled, trying not to make them think he would like to participate in their Sherlock Holmes sessions. He preferred actual Holmes sessions, watching movies or the series.

“Well, what do you think then, Mr smart-ass?”

“I don’t know, isn’t it your job to figure out?”

“You involved yourself, now …”  
“Then I click myself out again for now. Hasta la vista!” 

“But you can’t just …”, Funny complained halfheartedly.   
“Oh, please! Watch me!” 

The Mexican rapper decided to ignore his friend and glanced back at Charlie, who started to smile slowly, apparently becoming aware of the solution. 

“Who could be the stranger?”

“The murderer …”

“Yes, but does it ever say something about murder?”   
“No, just about death …” 

“So it doesn’t necessarily have to be some adult serial killer, right?” 

“Just say what you mean, Charlie, goddammit!”   
“I’m saying child!” 

“What?”   
“She could’ve given birth to a child, but she didn’t survive. If she was pregnant that would also explain why the husband was so afraid to leave her alone.” 

Funny Man grinned and nodded. 

“I hate to say it, mate, but you actually said something smart.” 

“I’m incredibly smart. I’ve got a QI of over 9000.”

“Do you mean an IQ? Then 9000 is a bit over the top, like you would die.” 

“Fuck of, wise guy, I decide how smart I am. At least I went to high school!” 

The Mexican wasn’t fazed at all. 

“You remember that Jay didn’t go … I went to college, asshole!” 

“But how? You can barely color a book!” 

“I can tell you how to color it to express a certain feeling! I paid attention in class!”   
“Did you really?”, Charlie asked, clearly surprised. 

“Of course not! I don’t even remember the teachers’ names and I’m not sure I ever did”, Funny laughed. 

“Well, do you know what we should do now?”, Johnny asked, hoping to get an idea from him.

“Movie night! Just like the old days …” 

For a second, Johnny thought to fight him, but then he realised that he didn’t have any better idea. Having a movie night actually sounded like a lot of fun. 

“Yeah, but how about we get us some pizza first?”, J-Dog suggested, immediately getting full approval from his Mexican band mate. 

“Good idea. How did Funny survive without some for so long anyways?”, Danny joked. 

“Fuck you, Danny, I’m right here and I survive on tacos.” 

“Alright, if you say so …”   
“Children, stop it, who wants to get the pizza?”   
“I can do it!”, Funny offered, already putting on his shoes and almost out the door. 

“I’ll tag along. Make sure you don’t eat everything on your way!”, J-Dog grinned, following quickly and waving goodbye to the rest of the band. 

-

When they got back, Danny was already preparing the DVD player, laying out some movies to watch, Terminator and a James Bond on top. Apparently, he was in a mood for action and especially J-Dog had no problem with that. He loved war movies and action was the closest thing to it he could persuade his friends into watching multiple ones with him. And horror movies weren’t a thing for movie nights unless it was Halloween. 

“Yo, guys, I guess we should ask Kurlzz if he wants to join …”, Johnny suggested, making everybody nod immediately. Even if the drummer made clear he didn’t want to eat or play games with them, a movie night was something different and not as usual every day, even though this wasn’t the first time this tour. 

“I’ll check on him”, J-Dog offered, already making his way into the bunks part, pulling back DaKurlzz’ curtains to talk to him. The drummer was listening to music over his headphones, eyes closed. Carefully, Jay tapped his shoulder and waited for DaKurlzz to look at him.   
“What do you want, Jay?”  
“We’re doing a movie night and wanted to know if you wanna join …”   
“I’m having a quiet day, I told you!” 

“I know. But we don’t do this every day, so I wanted to ask you specifically.”   
“Thanks for checking on me, but really, I don’t care, I don’t wanna go. Please just leave me alone and keep yourselves busy.”  
“Are you okay, though?” 

“I just don’t wanna watch a movie with you …”  
“Not because you don’t join now, just in general. Are you okay?”   
The drummer nodded.   
“Of course, Jay, of course. I’m all good, just gimme a day to chill, alright? How are you and Danny?”   
“He’s still distant, but I think he doesn’t hate me that much anymore.”   
DaKurlzz grinned.   
“He never hated you, mate, he never could.”  
“Why are you so sure?”  
“Because I tried hating Charlie, I tried. But it wasn’t possible. I just couldn’t. And you never purposely hurt Danny, so why should he be mad at you?” 

J-Dog shrugged, not really having an answer, but also not able to believe his band mate.   
“I know you don’t know what I mean, Jay, I know. But you’ll see soon.” 

“Thanks, mate.”  
“Nothing to thank me for. Now go watch your movie and tell the guys to fall asleep halfway through for me. It’s not like I ever made it through the night anyways!”   
“See you tomorrow?”   
“For sure, mate, goodnight.”   
“Sleep well …”


	20. 19. December

Like he had already planned yesterday, DaKurlzz came around the next day, eating with the rest of the band again and using talking to Johnny to ignore Charlie completely. He didn’t even notice the bandana rapper didn’t insult him in any way, not wanting to risk his friendship with the drummer again. Okay, actually he didn’t care about that, he hadn’t cared for years, but didn’t want to be all alone at New Year’s Eve, so he had to get the drummer for himself before someone else took him away. Yes, he was greedy, but who gave a fuck? He certainly didn’t.   
The only one noticing how quiet Charlie was and how he didn’t fight with DaKurlzz again, was Danny. The lead singer tried to avoid too much conversation with J-Dog again, so he kept himself busy by watching the others. Therefore, he immediately noticed the missing fights at the table. Not that it bothered him too much, he enjoyed the peace, but he was worried. Usually being quiet in this band meant that they were completely stressed out, whether physically or mentally. Especially when it was about Charlie who normally could never shut his mouth for a second. 

“Charlie? Can I talk to you for a minute? Privately …”, the singer asked. 

The bandana rapper looked at him in surprise, but then nodded, standing up to follow Danny outside, leaving his unfinished toast on the table. 

Outside of the bus, he lit up a cigarette, leaning against the bus and looking at the lead singer expectantly. 

“So … whatcha wanna talk about?” 

“Uhm, you were quiet this morning, I wanted to make sure you’re okay …”   
Charlie stared at him for a second, then he started to laugh loudly. 

“I was worried!”, Danny complained, hating not to be taken seriously. 

Once the bandana rapper had calmed down again, he slung his arm around Danny’s shoulder.   
“Sorry, but … I’m totally alright. It’s cute you worry about me, but I just thought it would be nice to leave Matty alone for a day …”

“Cut the bullshit!” 

“Wha-“  
“You never gave him a break before, why should you suddenly do that?”, Danny argued. 

“Why wouldn’t I?”  
“Because you didn’t for years, when he asked you to.”   
“I grew up.”  
“And I’m Santa. What’s really going on?” 

Charlie thought of a good, sarcastic answer for a second, but then he realised he couldn’t keep that game up forever. And if one of the band had to find out, it better be Danny who could keep a secret and wouldn’t mock him until the end of his days. 

“It’s Christmas soon, then comes New Years Day. Time of the family, bla, bla, bla. Everybody hanging out with their wives, girlfriends, boyfriends. I don’t wanna spend that alone like every year. Not this time. But I know that when I keep on making jokes, I have no chance, so I’ll try my luck being nice to Matty. Do you think he likes me? I’m not sure yet …”  
Danny grinned brightly. 

“That’s adorable!! I mean … of course he likes you … have you seen him? Don’t you see the way he blushes whenever you glance at him?” 

“What’s my chance if I asked him out?” 

“I don’t know. Today? Not too good, I’d say, he still needs at least one day to calm down, but if you ask tomorrow, it could work. I have no idea, but try talking to him tomorrow. Talking as in making up with him and apologising. Then you’ll see if he’d go out with you or not …”

“Probably not …”   
“Charlie! I don’t wanna hear that until you actually asked him!”   
“Deal. But I say ten bucks he rejects me.”   
“Okay, we can make that bet. You can give me the money now, I’m 100% sure.”   
“No money until I asked him.”   
“Fine …”, Danny grumbled, internally laughing because he knew all too well about DaKurlzz major crush on the bandana rapper and that the drummer could never resist being asked out by him. 

However, he of course didn’t want to pressure his friend into anything, so he simply padded his shoulder before walking inside again, letting the rapper follow him after finishing his cigarette.

“Well, where have you two lovebirds been?”, Funny Man chuckled, ignoring both men flipped him off. 

“Shh, Funny, they were talking about their teenage problems, let them be!”, Johnny continued teasing the two, grinning like crazy. 

“What could you possibly been talking about?”  
“Love. Sex. Drugs. Violence. What else did you expect?”, Danny joked back, not letting them win this time. 

-

After a while of chill small talk, Charlie decided that it was time to open the next riddle, making sure that everybody saw him walking over to the calendar. Danny chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Man I didn’t think you’d get stuck on that old thing …”  
“What are you trying to say?”  
“Damn, mate, I thought you would solve maybe seven riddles at most and now you won’t forget one!”

“Let me be a child!” 

“Alright, buddy, whatever you say …”

Ignoring the rest of the band, Charlie started to read the next riddle, not giving a shit about what the others thought. It wasn’t like they would do anything as long as he wasn’t hurting himself or others. They put the calendar there, they had to deal with the consequences now.

-

_Three spies, suspected as double agents, speak as follows when questioned:_

_Albert: “Bertie is a mole.”_

_Bertie: “Cedric is a mole.”_

_Cedric: “Bertie is lying.”_

_Assuming that moles lie, other agents tell the truth, and there is just one mole among the three, who is the mole?_

-

“Ugh, I hate these …”, Charlie complained, looking over to his friends for support, but Johnny was stuck reading, Danny was talking to DaKurlzz, and Funny was chatting with J-Dog. 

“Guys! I need your help!”  
“Again?”, Funny chuckled, making the bandana rapper groan. 

“Okay, I don’t need your help, but I would still like it!” 

The Mexican grinned, nodding slowly and standing up to walk over to him. 

“Okay, show me!”  
“Read this …”   
After a second, Funny shook his head in disbelief. 

“Seriously? Ava and Scarlett could solve that in seconds …”  
“Good for them. I can’t. I don’t care what they can do. Should I call them or what?”   
“Calm your tits, dude”, Funny Man joked, leading him back over to the couch. 

“So what’s the answer Mr smart-ass?”   
“Oh, right … It’s Bertie. Albert and Cedric are both saying the truth. Everybody says it’s Bertie except for Bertie. Pretty obvious if you ask me.”   
“Well, I didn’t ask you!”  
“Oh, but you did!”  
“No, I didn’t ask you! I said 'guys', not 'Funny Man', so I didn’t ask you specifically. Granted, you were the only one listening, but they’re all here, right?”  
“I hate you.”   
“Sure. Love you, too.”   
Suddenly DaKurlzz looked over at them.   
“Have you settled it? Can we all join back in now?” 

“Fuck you!”   
“I will. Later, though or Johnny here will kill me.”  
“Nah, he won’t notice.”  
Slowly but surely, Johnny removed his eyes from the page and stared at Charlie in disgust.

“Oh, I will notice. At least when he turns One Direction on or grabs my belt.”  
“I still hate you for that interview!”, DaKurlzz complained, causing the rest of the band to laugh.

“You love us!” 

“That’s probably my biggest problem.


	21. 20. December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So ... not that much drama here ... but more gay ... I hope you enjoy it!

The thing about Christmas time that DaKurlzz loved was everybody on the streets, going shopping and buying last minute presents, was maybe a little stressed, but kind and happy. Somehow it relaxed him to just watch the others, grinning whenever some Santa came across him and started to talk to the little children. Normally, the drummer couldn’t bare to be around so many kids, but at Christmas, he loved it. Sometimes he even thought it would be a good idea to be a father … but when he went to the next party he was happy not to have any responsibility in that matter. He had seen Danny often enough, worrying about drinking too much and the same problem had Johnny, but the drummer never had to bother with it, he didn’t need a baby sitter, he didn’t need to be quiet when he got home. 

While around Christmas he always enjoyed seeing other families, he couldn’t help but feel off in the world full of perfect families going shopping together. He just wished to have someone to go to, but he didn’t have contact with his own family and he didn’t want to interrupt his band mates’ parties. Of course he knew that Charlie didn’t have anything to do either, while all the others were with girlfriends, family and wives, but nothing would get the drummer to party with his longtime crush. In the end he would admit everything and destroy the band, he surely didn’t want to. So he avoided any one on one time with the bandana rapper.

-

Meanwhile Charlie was sitting on the bus, pacing back and forth while Danny was watching him, a knowing grin on his face. 

“Don’t worry that much, mate … if you still feel unsure then give him another day.” 

Charlie sighed, shaking his head before sitting down next to the singer.

“I don’t wanna wait! But you know, he probably still doesn’t want to see my face.”  
“Are you kidding me?”   
“Well, he isn’t there now, is he?”   
“He’s shopping. His gay soul needs some new clothes.”   
The bandana rapper chuckled quietly and nodded, taking a deep breath to calm himself down.   
“So?” 

“So what?”  
“What should I do?”  
“You wait here, solve today’s riddle, entertain your beautiful lead singer until he comes back and then you jump him, kiss him and ride into the sunset.”   
“Shut up, Danny, you aren’t beautiful enough to be entertained by me”, Charlie joked, ignoring the rest of what the lead singer had just said. He didn’t want to think about what could be and what was only a part of his weird fantasies at night.   
“Fuck off, bitch!”

“You’d like me to …”  
“No thanks, I’ll pass. Ask Matty, I’m sure he’ll be happy.”  
“Shut your fucking mouth!”, Charlie whined, but laughed soon after, standing up to go over to the calendar. 

-

_Juliet Hunter was found dead in a hut, she was covered in cuts and bruises and a razor in her hand this morning, forensics suggest she's been dead since last night._

_Two of her closest friends were found to be witnesses of what happened._

 

_Drake, an ear witness, is convinced that she committed suicide as he heard her shout through the door._

_Drew claims he saw Drake go in the hut with a razor and kill Juliet._

_All three planned to meet in the hut._

_Who killed her?_

-

“Do you need help again?”, Danny asked, already grinning. 

“No! This time I actually don’t …” 

“Oh really? Then enlighten me!” 

“Gimme a second, dude, just one fucking second.”   
It actually took Charlie not more than a minute to understand the riddle and then he started smile in triumph, knowing that this time, he was right and nothing could stop him now. 

“Both. It was both of them. If Drake thought it was suicide, why didn’t he stop her. If Drew saw him with a razor and knew they were supposed to meet, Drake should’ve killed him too. But he didn’t.” 

Clearly impressed, Danny nodded slowly, leaning back to relax a little again. 

“See? I’m smart.”   
“Yeah sure, so if you ask DaKurlzz out later, I’m really surprised …”, Danny replied, looking forwards to see his two friends finally get together. 

“Deal.”

-

DaKurlzz noticed something was up when he entered the bus and Danny started to smile brightly.

“What’s up with joker face here?”  
“Nothing. Charlie’s in the back.”   
“Why would I care where Charlie is?”, the drummer asked, confused. 

“Just go in the back. I talked to him … he really wants to apologise to you … please, give him a chance …” 

Still very suspicious of the situation, DaKurlzz nodded, going into the back lounge without looking back. He would’ve hesitated with any other band member, but he trusted Danny enough not to be into too much trouble without any warning. 

-

 

“Matty!”, Charlie exclaimed, becoming nervous as soon as the drummer walked in. 

“What’s up?”

“I … I just wanted to say sorry. I really behaved like a dick and I know that I’ve behaved this way for years and that I have no right to have your forgiveness, but I hope you understand that my intention was never to hurt you , but only to get your attention.”

DaKurlzz nodded slowly, starting to smile. 

“Why would you want my attention?” 

“Uhm, I might … let me show you okay?”, Charlie mumbled, blushing like crazy. This was a new thing for DaKurlzz to witness, to see the bandana rapper so insecure about himself. Usually the screamer was the shy one, first one to blush, to stutter and scared of being rejected by anyone, but this time it seemed like their roles were reversed. 

“Okay …”

Before he could hold himself back or think twice about his decisions, Charlie leaned forwards, pressing his lips against the drummer’s. For a second, DaKurlzz froze and the bandana rapper was about to pull back, but then the curly haired one wrapped his arms around Charlie’s neck, pulling him in closer again and starting to deepen the kiss. The sudden dominance of the usually so shy screamer surprised the rapper, but he didn’t mind at all. 

“Matt …”   
“I know … I know … just shut up, okay?”  
“Alright …”, Charlie mumbled, leaning closer once more.

For a minute or so, it felt like it was just these two on earth, but then they heard the sound of a phone camera. Immediately both turned around to see Danny and Funny standing in the door, the singer holding his phone up while the Mexican held out his hand. 

“Such a cute pic!”, Danny celebrated, but Charlie didn’t care, quietly pressing ten dollar in Funny’s hand.   
“Fine … you won …”  
Funny Man grinned proudly, while DaKurlzz raised his eyebrows at them. 

“What the …”  
“Oh, Charlie believed you would turn him down …”, the Mexican explained quickly, putting away the newly won money, before grabbing Danny’s arm and turning him around. 

“Come on, Danny, time to leave them alone before we get scarred for life …”  
“Danny! Why the photos? I thought you were innocent …”, the drummer complained halfheartedly, not listening to any response when Charlie kissed him again lovingly. 

Pulling the door close, Danny shook his head. 

“Innocent my ass”, he chuckled, sending the pictures to the rest of the band.


	22. 21. December

Now that the two bickering band members were finally together, J-Dog thought that it was time to make sure everybody knew that they were one band. At least he told himself that was the reason why he decided to go shopping just before Christmas alone. He wanted to have something small, like the HU tattoo, but not as permanent. At first he thought about a necklace or something, before remembering that they’d probably all lose it after minutes when they took it off for sleeping or exercising, same problem with bracelets or rings. Besides, he didn’t want to look like he was married to all of them … It had to be something simpler, something not easy to lose and yet easy to take off if needed. 

It took him a while until he found exactly what he had been looking for, in a small clothing shop. Exactly six sweaters, all saying 'Fuck This Christmas - Just Gimme The Drinks'. They were all black with a drunk Santa on the front, that instantly reminded J-Dog of that one time Funny Man dressed up as Santa. He was pretty sure that the Mexican had been drunk back then, too. 

-

When he was back on the bus, even though he should’ve known better, Jay was pretty surprised to see DaKurlzz and Charlie making out on the couch while Danny, Johnny and Funny were standing close to the fridge, obviously trying to block them out while still eating. 

“Ugh, please, get a room!”, J-Dog complained. 

Charlie leaned back from the drummer for a second, laughing, before actually standing up.   
“Alright … you guys might wanna stay out of the bunk parts …”

“Don’t make me think about that! Just go!”, Johnny shouted, waving the two off quickly and hiding his face in Danny’s shoulder who started to laugh loudly. 

“Your poor innocent eyes …”

“Yes, Danny, my eyes are very innocent! They have seen nothing yet!”  
“You fuck your wife without looking?”, Funny Man asked confused, making everybody still in the room crack up in laughter. 

“Well …”

“I don’t even wanna know what sick games you’re playing at home so that you never see her face …”  
“But only looking into her eyes would leave me innocent, right?”   
“As if!”   
“Nah, in reality he’s just to busy trying to open her bra he can’t focus on anything else”, Jay joked, stepping out of Johnny’s reach quickly. 

The blue-masked rapper shook his head and flipped the rapper off, not bothering to try harder to hit him. He was still tired and simply didn’t care enough. 

“So what have you been doing, Jay?”, Johnny asked quickly, obviously changing the topic, but the others didn’t even point that out, they just went along.   
“Shopping.”   
“Christmas presents?”, Danny asked, becoming excited immediately. 

“Not quite. You don’t have to wait till Christmas.”  
“What is it?”, Funny asked on, completely forgetting about Johnny’s story.

Sensing that talking wouldn’t do much for him, J-Dog just pulled out the sweaters and showed them to the band.   
“Damn, dude that’s awesome!”, Danny exclaimed immediately putting one on. 

“Glad you like it …”  
“We totally have to wear them on our Christmas concert!”, Funny suggested, jumping up and down. He was always the one to worry about clothing on stage (and usually the only one to have his ideas rejected from the beginning) and this time, the others didn’t even disagree. They would make a really good stage outfit indeed and nothing was more exciting than playing girl band.

“We have to show Charlie and Kurlzz …”  
“Yeah, but Funny, let’s wait with that … give them ten minutes or so, we all know that Charlie can’t fuck longer than that …”, Danny chuckled. 

Just when he had said it, the door from the bunks parts opened and Charlie looked into the lounge. 

“Oh please, Danny!” 

“See … wasn’t Matt good enough to keep you from eavesdropping?”, Johnny joked, barely glancing at the bandana rapper. 

“Actually I just wanted to come back and ask Johnny where you hid Matt’s stuff again, but yes, I found your discussion quite interesting. What clothes are you talking about?”   
J-Dog pressed two of the sweaters into his hand.

“Here. I thought they were nice …”

“Look what fancy stuff you buy.”  
“It says fuck on it, I don’t think that counts as fancy”, Danny murmured quietly, making Johnny chuckle, but the others couldn’t hear the singer. 

“So what do you do now? Go back to your boyfriend.”   
“Well … yeah. Actually that’s what I’m gonna do … oh and Funny? Please solve the riddle and show it to me later, I can’t be bothered right now, there’s a half-naked drummer waiting in my bunk.”   
“Ugh, shut your fucking cake hole!”, J-Dog complained, cringing madly before the bandana rapper disappeared again, waving goodbye to his friends. Seconds later, they had to turn the TV louder and the radio as well, trying to find something to busy themselves, only to ignore the moans coming from the bunk parts. From all the things they liked about sharing a bus as best friends, hearing the band mates have their fun time alone wasn’t that enjoyable. 

So instead of listening to them or focusing on dirty thoughts about what they were doing, Funny decided to go for the riddle and activate his brain cells for a change. 

-

_There is a man found dead in a circular mansion. The detective interviews the cook, maid, and babysitter. The cook said he couldn't have done it because he was preparing the meal. The maid said she couldn't have done it because she was dusting the corners. The babysitter said she couldn't because she was playing with the children. Who was lying?_

-

Funny Man sighed to himself. This was another riddle of something that had to be wrong. Apparently, the cook wasn’t lying because there was nothing hinting to no meal being cooked. The babysitter also couldn’t have been it because playing with children was a good reason if they had any, but if the children weren’t there, the man wouldn’t have hired a babysitter in the first place, would he? So the only one left was the maid. But why would she do it?  
The Mexican read the riddle over and over again, until he noticed something … it was a circular mansion … there were no corners to dust …

Grinning at his own victory, Funny Man jumped in the air, but then he remembered why he had solved the riddle. The sounds from the bunk parts came creeping back into his mind and this time, he couldn’t block them out by doing something interesting for a minute. He didn’t want to read or watch TV either, so there was only Danny left who tried blocking out any sounds by skyping with his daughter. 

Without even asking, Funny stole one of the earphones, sitting down next to the singer and waving at his daughter.

“Hi Scar! How’s it going?”

“Great! I miss daddy, but I found a new friend!” 

“Oh really? Who is it?”, Funny asked, trying to avoid any darker topics at the moment. Danny just looked at him, smiling brightly. 

“His name is Tom! He’s nice!” 

“Oooh, do you like him?”   
“Ew, you’re weird! He’s a boy!”  
Danny and Funny looked at each other.   
“We’re boys, too!”, the lead singer complained to his daughter who laughed. 

“But I don’t have to go out with you or kiss you!”   
“That’s true …”, Funny Man agreed, “but what’s so bad about boys?”   
“I don’t know. I don’t like them! I’m gonna marry Ava when we’re older!” 

Danny chuckled at the sheer adorableness of his daughter.  
“Oh really? Does she know about that, too?” 

“She proposed to me yesterday!”, Scarlett grinned, holding up a small ring for him to see. 

“Well, but you gotta ask her dad for permission and she has to ask me!”

“Okay. I’ll tell her. But would you have a problem with that?”

“No, not at all. I think it’s cute.” 

“Good. Cause mummy said that some people might not like it!”   
“Well, I’m not homophobic, that means I have nothing against it”, he glanced at J-Dog, but then decided it was best not to tell his daughter about him yet. Especially not when he was sitting in the same room.   
“Great! Then I don’t have to worry!” 

Danny grinned. 

“You totally don’t. I love you no matter what. And honey, please tell Ava that she doesn’t need to worry about her daddy either, okay? Johnny doesn’t have anything against it either.”  
“I will tell her!”  
“Very good, girl. Now go to bed before mommy finds out you’re still awake!”

“Okay. Good night, dad, good night Funny!” 

“Night sweetie!”  
“Night, Scar!”

Hanging up, Danny turned slowly to look at the Mexican rapper, then he started laughing. 

“I think I just witnessed my daughter talking about a proposal. That’s so weird …”  
“Yes, now it’s only you who needs to make his move!”  
“Shut up!”  
“You. Jay. At Christmas the latest. I wanna have a holiday with you two lovebirds and Charlie and DaKurlzz in there. No sad face. Just happiness and alcohol.” 

“But …”  
“No buts, Danny. If you don’t get together with him, because he clearly is ready to jump you and so are you, then you pay for the night.”


	23. 22. December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't live with no stress ... but it's earlier out now cause I had the time.

After two pretty chill days, most of the band had the feeling that the tour wouldn’t be a complete disaster. Well, everybody thought so, except for Johnny. Sure, he didn’t have to complain about all the fighting anymore, because Jay and Danny were simply barely talking to each other and DaKurlzz and Charlie finally found a solution to their problem. But all of that didn’t solve one problem: Johnny wanted to go home. 

He wanted to spend Christmas like in the last years with his wife and daughter, he wanted to see Ava’s face light up when she unwrapped all the presents and he wanted to eat proper dinner, not just fast food. No, he wasn’t homesick, he only wanted to be home for two days instead of having to stand on stage. Of course he enjoyed making the fans happy, but his daughter was of more importance to him. And he wanted to make sure she knew that as well.

-

“Morning, Johnny, did you eat already?”, Danny asked happily, walking into the front lounge, but frowning when he saw Johnny’s annoyed expression.

“Do I look like it?”  
“Okay, bro, chill … I’ll make you some more coffee …”  
“I don’t want any.”  
“Yeah, but you need some. You’re bitching again.”  
“I’m not tired! I’m not hungry!”  
“Then what’s wrong?”  
“Why do you think that I’m angry because my needs aren’t fulfilled? Am I some stupid animal to you?”  
“Damn it, no you aren’t, but that were my first guesses. If it’s something else then just tell me and I’ll see what I can do!”  
“You can’t do anything …”  
“Try me!”  
“Just fuck off, alright?”, Johnny hissed, leaving the front lounge and walking into the back part of the bus, leaving a stunned Danny behind in the kitchen. 

But of course the lead singer didn’t let himself be waved off just like that, he followed the blue-masked rapper immediately. 

“What’s up?”  
“Leave me alone!” 

“No. Not anymore. You tell me.”  
“Why do you wanna know?”  
“Because I wanna help you. Everything is chill again and then you’re flipping out. I just want to restore peace and I can’t if I don’t know what’s going on with you!”  
“You can’t do anything against it. Don’t fight with management, Danny!”  
“What do they have to do with it?”  
“They planned this fucking tour!”  
Johnny paused for a second, before quietening down again. 

“I just wanna go home for Christmas, goddammit.”  
Danny nodded understandingly and sat down next to Johnny on the couch, placing a comforting arm around his shoulders. 

“I’ll see what I can do …”  
“We have a concert, you can’t change that.”  
“You’re right … but you know we’re all here for you. If you want I can wear a blonde wig.”  
“Oh God, no!”  
Laughing, Danny patted Johnny’s back and stood up again.  
“Breakfast?”  
“Hell yeah! I need some coffee!”  
“I told you …”  
-

Two hours later, Johnny was reading when Danny went outside the bus, cigarette in one hand, phone in the other, quickly dialling Asia’s number.

“Hello? Danny? What’s up?”  
“Hey Asia! Just wondering what you have planned for Christmas …”  
“Not much. Just a cozy evening at home, skyping with Johnny if possible … why?” 

“Because he’s flipping out. He misses you two like crazy and I was wondering if you would like to swing by tomorrow or so, we’re in Vegas then, just as a nice surprise …” 

“Do you have enough room on the bus?”  
“Easy. We have to techs less this tour, so there are exactly two bunks for you.” 

“Well … I guess we could organise that …”  
“Brilliant. Jimmy or so can get you from the airport.”  
“Do you think he’ll …”  
“Oh please, he’s moping without you. It can’t get worse …”  
“You’re probably right. But by the way, how are you Danny? Johnny told me about Reese … I’m so sorry …”  
“It’s fine. It hadn’t worked out for a while now. I’m just a little pissed that I held myself back for Scar’s sake and she just didn’t give a fuck.”  
“Oh right, about you holding back … how are you and Jay?”  
“For fuck’s sake, did Johnny tell you about that, too?”  
“No. I’m just a fan. So?”  
“We’re kinda talking again, kinda not. Dunno. But we aren’t fighting anymore, so I guess that’s good. Charlie and DaKurlzz got together though!”  
“Finally! Took them long enough!”  
Danny chuckled. 

“True … look, I gotta go back before they become suspicious … see you tomorrow?”  
“Definitely. I’ll text you the time.”  
“Alright, bye!” 

-

Just when he hung up, Charlie ran out of the bus, jumping up and down excitedly. 

“Guess who solved the riddle?”  
“Funny.”  
“Fuck you!” 

The singer grinned and shook his head.

“What was the riddle?”

-

_A man got killed in his office. The suspects are Edison, Maxis, Jason, Janna, Sofia, Patrick. A calendar near the man has blood, written 6, 4, 9, 10, 11. Who is the killer?_

-

“Who was it?”  
“Think in months, dude.”  
“In months?”  
“6 is June, 4 is April and so on …”  
“Oh! Then the killer must be … Jason, right?”  
“Yes!”  
“But that’s complicated … how the fuck did you solve it?”  
“I’m Sherlock Holmes!”  
“And I’m Barack Obama.”  
“You got a little pale, mister president …”  
“Yeah, the job is hard”, Danny joked back, grinning. 

“And your style …”  
“Oh come on! Obama is friends with Biden. Do you really think they bother?”  
Charlie shrugged, pulling Danny back on the bus. 

“I don’t know. I don’t care. What were you doing?”  
“Calling my mother. Why are you asking?”  
“Did you tell her I said hi?”  
“No. Of course not. She hates you.”  
“Really?”

“Nah, she likes everybody. But if she knew you better, she would hate you.”  
“But I’m liberal-minded.”  
“Tell that DaKurlzz.”  
“I can’t!”  
Danny raised an eyebrow at the rapper.  
“Why not?”  
“Because whenever I talk to him, he’s distracting me …”  
“Ugh, I don’t wanna hear details.”

Laughing loudly and carelessly, Charlie patted him on the shoulder, before walking over to where the drummer was standing, starting a heated make-out session. Danny glanced at Jay who looked back, cringing, before both started to crack up in laughter. They didn’t even notice Charlie flipping them off, before he and the drummer moved into the bunks part again.

 


	24. 23. December

When Danny saw Jimmy leave for the airport, he couldn’t stop smiling to himself, trying not to show the rest of the band. Of course, he mainly wanted to surprise Johnny, but he knew that letting Charlie or Funny know would mean they would hint so much even a first grader could guess what was going on. So the singer had to keep it all a secret, only telling Jimmy so the tour guy wouldn’t pick up random strangers. Since Jimmy had been their tour guy for years and actually had been to Johnny’s wedding so he should know his wife, but then again, Jimmy tended to drink an awful lot, so Danny wasn’t sure if he even remembered the wedding, yet alone Asia’s face. And to be 100% sure, he even texted Jimmy some of the latest pictures of the Ragan family. 

“Who are you texting?”, J-Dog asked curiously, trying to look over the singer’s shoulder, but Danny turned his phone so he couldn’t see it anymore. 

“Just Jimmy.”  
“Are you two dating? Why are you hiding the conversation?”

“No! It’s just that he asked me not to give out any details to you.”   
“Where is he anyways?”  
“Picking up family from the airport. He’s so excited!”   
“You seem to be, too. Who is he bringing.”   
“I think his sister or something, I don’t remember.”   
“If you can’t remember who comes, why do you look so happy?”, J-Dog teased, grinning widely. 

“Well, I guess his happiness was kind of infectious.”

Even though J-Dog could call Danny out immediately, he decided to let it be. He knew that the time before Christmas often was stressful enough for a father, so he feared to bother him even more by asking too many questions. Especially as long as he couldn’t be sure what the problem was.

-

Luckily, Asia knocked on the door before Johnny was even awake, so Danny sprinted to open and smiled brightly when he recognised the two familiar faces in front of him.   
“Asia!!!” 

The woman laughed and hugged the singer close. 

“Hey, Danny.”   
“And the little one! Ava! So great to see you …”

The girl grinned and jumped in Danny’s arms. 

“Scar says hi!”

“Lovely. I hope she knows I would say hi back.”   
“Yes. I told her. She said she was very happy that you didn’t get angry.”   
Danny chuckled. 

“I could never be mad at her for something as simple as being in love.” 

“Have you talked to your parents yet?”

“To mummy, yes. She said she was happy. But I was scared to call daddy.” 

Becoming serious again, Danny crouched down on Ava’s eye level. 

“No need to be. I promise you that he does not have any problem with it. But why don’t you surprise him first? He’s still asleep in his bunk.” 

Ava nodded excitedly and grabbed her mother’s hand to go there, when J-Dog entered the lounge and smiled. 

“Asia! Ava! The killer girls are here!”   
“Jorel! So nice to see you again!”

“Hi Jay! Is daddy still sleeping?”  
“I think so … you can give him a good old scare when you wake him …”  
Grinning mischievously, the young girl went to the bunks’ part, where she pulled back Johnny’s curtains, only to step back quickly. Her father was curled up under a thin blanket, pale face, but his eyes reddened. Ava didn’t have to be an adult to see her father was in pain. 

Suddenly her mother came in behind her. 

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

She stopped abruptly when she saw her husband’s face. 

“Oh my … I’m sure he’ll be alright, darling.”  
“He doesn’t look alright.”   
That was when Danny followed the two and flinched at the sight of his band mate and close friend. 

“He’s homesick. That’s why I called you in the first place. He’ll be happy to see you two.”

As carefully as possible for her, Ava climbed into her father’s bunk and shook him awake. 

“Just five more minutes …”, the rapper mumbled. 

“No, dad, I don’t want to give you more time. I miss you.”   
At the sound of Ava’s voice, Johnny’s eyes shot open immediately and he started to laugh carelessly, for the first time in days, wrapping his strong arms around her fragile body. 

“Oh my God, cutie-pie, I missed you, too! Why are you here? Who let you in?”

“Danny. He got us here. You look awful!”   
Johnny chuckled quietly, rubbing his face tiredly, before smiling softly at his daughter.

“I’m okay.” 

“You don’t look okay.” 

“Just worn out. Don’t worry, my darling.”

Ava didn’t look convinced, but she nodded slowly, burying her face in her father’s shoulder. The blue-masked rapper pulled his daughter closer, before looking up, eyes lighting up when he saw his wife. 

“Hey lovely.”

“How are you doing?”

“Good. Now that you’re here.” 

Asia smiled and sat down next to him, kissing his cheek. 

“Glad to help. By the way, Ava wanted to ask you something …”  
And with that, she stood up and left the two to their own. 

“What’s up? What did you want to ask?”, Johnny questioned quietly, frowning when he noticed that she started shaking badly. 

“What would you say if … if I wouldn’t marry a boy, but a girl?”, she finally mumbled out, internally hoping that he couldn’t hear her. But he did. 

“I would be relieved, cause boys can be huge jerks.”

Ava chuckled quietly, breathing out slowly.   
“Who’s the lucky girl?”   
“Uhm, Scarlett.”   
“THE Scarlett?”   
Unable to answer directly, Ava simply nodded, closing her eyes in fear. Of course Johnny noticed that, too, tightening his hold around her body. 

“Ava, I want you to know that no matter who you love, you’re my daughter and I will love you. Don’t let me tell you what to do with your heart. If you wanna marry Scar, you have to ask Danny, too, though.”   
“She already did. He thought it was cute.” 

“Of course he did. He’s a sucker for chick-flick stories.”

-

After about an hour of cuddling in the bunk, Johnny and Ava decided that they could get up and join Danny, J-Dog and Asia in the lounge, but the four adults talked about tour management and the news, so Ava got bored quickly, starting to doze off on her daddy’s lap. 

“Are you tired?”, the blue-masked rapper asked quietly, but his daughter shook her head. 

“You’re boring.”   
Danny, who watched the conversation chuckled and stood up, getting out the day’s riddle, before Funny and Charlie were even awake. That would be a first. 

“You can try to solve this, Ava. It’s what Charlie and Funny have been doing the last month. I bet you’re smarter than them, aren’t you?”

-

_Every day, a man crosses the border of Mexico on a bicycle with two bags of sand. The customs officers check his bags and they are full of sand. The custom officers are aware that he is smuggling something but are not sure what is it exactly. As they do not have any evidence, they let him cross the border. What is he smuggling?_

_-_

The little girl smiled as she read the riddle, grinning at her dad and his friends. 

“That’s so easy! They must have had harder ones …”

“I’m pretty sure they’re just idiots”, J-Dog chuckled, making everybody crack up in laughter.  
“No, but seriously. He’s smuggling bikes.” 

Danny stared at her in shock, then he glanced at Johnny. 

“Damn that was quick.” 

“I’m smart.”

Johnny laughed, picking her up. 

“That’s my daughter!”

And exactly at this moment, Danny knew that inviting Asia and Ava over had been the best idea he had for a while and that nothing else would’ve helped Johnny smile like that again.


	25. 24. December

Opening his eyes, Johnny looked down on his sleeping daughter and grinned to himself, before looking over to see his wife pressed against his side. Even though the bunk usually was way too small for two people, they somehow made it work. Shifting carefully, Johnny kissed her cheek and her eyelids fluttered open. 

“Morning.”   
“Ugh, Johnny, let me sleep.”

The blue-masked rapper chuckled quietly. 

“But I have to get up. So you either stand up, too, or let me pass.”   
Groaning in annoyance, Asia climbed over her husband, placing Ava’s sleeping form on her stomach. The girl stirred a little, but didn’t wake up. Johnny smiled at his two girls and slipped out of the bunk, noticing on his way to the front lounge that Jay’s and Danny’s bunks were already empty.

-

The two band members were sitting in front of the TV, J-Dog asleep against Danny’s shoulder who barely looked up when Johnny entered. 

“J couldn’t sleep again? And what are you doing up?”

“Not sure. I woke up an hour ago and went to get myself some coffee and saw him sitting here, looking tired as fuck. Now I managed to get him to sleep, but he still needs a lot of rest …” 

The blue-masked rapper nodded, turning on the small stove. 

“Wait, Johnny, you’re actually cooking something?”   
“My wife’s here. Of course I’m making good breakfast then. You want some scrambled eggs, too?”   
“If you’re offering … sure!”   
Johnny nodded, looking for the eggs in the fridge, while Danny stared on the TV. However, the older rapper didn’t miss that the singer kissed his best friend’s (and huge crush of course, because really, that was so fucking obvious since Danny had met Jay) head carefully.

“You know … you gotta man up some time …”  
Danny sighed and nodded.

“I know, I know. I’ll do it today.”  
“Alright, that sounds like a plan … are you sure?”  
“Yes. I have a bet with Funny running.”   
“The good old Funny. You’ll thank him later.”  
“Yeah, sure and I’ll hit him in the face.”  
“Please don’t, we have a concert later.”  
“Do you think I should do it then?”  
“Your choice, your choice. Would be fucking awesome though! But you have to make sure that Jay would be okay with that. You’re pretty much outing him and yourself on stage.”   
The lead singer nodded thoughtfully, before smiling.  
“I’m doing it.”  
“Good luck then. You need my help?”  
“I’ll see. If so, I’ll tell you.”  
“I hope you do. I can’t read minds.”  
“You can’t?”, Ava asked, walking in. 

“No, darling, I can’t. Otherwise I would know about your little crush before you told me, wouldn’t I?”   
His daughter shrugged, sitting down next to Danny. 

“I have to ask you, yet. Will you allow me to marry Scarlett?”   
Danny grinned at the girl. 

“Of course. What makes her happy, under those circumstances at least, makes me happy. Besides, would be hypocritical if I would forbid you and your father would hang me, so …”  
Johnny chuckled, nodding immediately.  
“I would slice your throat.”  
“Dad!” 

The singer only laughed and shook his head.

“See? I’ll let you marry happily if I can be a flower girl.” 

“Sure …”  
“Yay!!”, Danny cheered quietly, careful not to wake the still sleeping rapper leaning on him. 

“But you have to wear a white dress”, Ava added.

“With pleasure.”  
-

This day Ava decided she could wait for Funny and Charlie to wake up before solving the riddle. She wanted to know who of the three was the fastest. 

Needless to say that as soon as the two rappers entered the lounge, Ava packed out the riddle and ran up to them, shoving it in their face. 

“Wow, slow down … what is that?”, Funny chuckled. 

“Today’s riddle! Let’s see if you’re quicker than me. Cause daddy said you weren’t.” 

“Traitor”, Charlie whispered, making the other two grin. 

“Well, let’s see then, shall we?”, Funny suggested, looking at the riddle.

-

_A Japanese ship was en route in the open sea. The Japanese captain went for a shower removing his diamond ring and Rolex watch on the table. When he returned, his valuables were missing. The captain immediately called the five suspected crew members and asked each one where and what he was doing for the last 15 minutes._

 

_The Filipino cook in a heavy overcoat said, I was in fridge room getting meat for cooking._

 

_The Indian Engineer with a torch in hand said, I was working on generator engine._

 

_The Sri Lankan seaman said, I was on the mast (top of the ship) correcting the flag which was upside down by mistake._

 

_The British radio officer said, I was messaging to company that we are reaching the next port in 72 hours. From now that is Wednesday morning at 10 AM._

 

_The British navigation officer said, I am on night watch, so sleeping in my cabin._

 

_The captain caught the liar. So who is the thief?_

-

Before Charlie and Funny had even a second to think about it, Ava jumped in the air. 

“The seaman did it! The Japanese flag looks the same upside down!” 

Quietly cursing under his breath, Charlie nodded, admitting his failure. Funny grinned at the young girl.   
“You have your mother’s wits.”   
“Excuse me!”, Johnny complained from where he was standing, but nobody cared about him. 

“I know.”   
Shaking his head, Johnny walked over to them, picking up his daughter. 

“Smart-ass.”

“Bad word!”  
The rest of the band cracked up in laughter, while Johnny put her down.

“It’s not like I could fucking protect you from these asshole Americans who cuss all the fucking time.”  
-

Danny had never been so nervous before a concert. He kept glancing over at Johnny for reassurance, but the rapper was busy talking to his daughter.   
“Are you okay, mate?”, J-Dog asked suddenly, wrapping an arm around the singer.

“Course.”  
“You look a bit shaky …”   
“Yeah, I … I don’t know … I think I drank too much coffee and missed a smoke …”   
Even though J-Dog knew that wasn’t everything, he didn’t have the time to question the singer further, because their manager shouted they were on. 

-

After singing Christmas In Hollywood, their last song for the set, Danny nodded at Johnny who stood up on one of the smaller platforms, making everybody else in the band look at him. 

“So! Merry Christmas you fuckers! We got one more thing to say, so please, complete silence for our little lion!” 

Jumping back down on the main stage, Johnny pushed Danny up who grabbed J-Dogs arm to follow him. 

“You’re probably all wondering what I’m doing … and to be honest, I have no fucking plan how to say what I wanna say, so please J-Dog just stay like that and let me do my crazy singer diva stuff, okay?”   
Hesitantly, J-Dog nodded. Danny smiled awkwardly, then he placed both hands on the rapper’s neck, pulled him closer and pressed his lips against his. Immediately, Jay responded, wrapping his arms around Danny’s back and smiling into the kiss. The crowd froze for a second, then they started cheering loudly while the rest of the band was going crazy on stage. 

“Jorel fucking Decker, will you be my boyfriend?”, Danny asked into the microphone.

“Of course, you stupid idiot!”

With one more kiss, the band waved their fans good bye and went backstage, where they were greeted by their tour manager who pulled the two new boyfriends into a tight hug. 

“Proud of you boys, good show! Now get some sleep.”  
But before the two could answer anything, Ava jumped into Danny’s arms and grinned.  
“You’re too gay to be homophobic.”   
“Like I said, would be hypocritical!”   
“But if we marry, you and Jay both have to be flower girls in white dresses.”  
Jay blushed instantly, shaking his head. 

“We’ll see about that … I’m sure Jay would look hot in a dress.”  
“Totally.”  
“Now, let’s go to bed, otherwise Santa can’t come bring you presents.” 


	26. 25. December

“Daddy! Daddy, wake up! Santa is here!”, Ava shouted, jumping onto Johnny’s stomach until he opened his eyes sleepily. 

“What? Did you find your presents yet?”  
“No! He’s actually there!” 

Now Johnny got curious, sitting up fully and wrapping his arm around Ava’s shoulders. 

“Are you coming?”, the girl asked, pulling the rapper along who stumbled into the front lounge with her. When he saw the Santa Claus sitting on the couch, he had to suppress his laughter. To him it was pretty clear that Funny Man had simply put on his costume once again. 

“Well, hello again, young Ava.”   
“Hi Santa!”   
“I see you brought your father … do you think he deserves anything?”  
Ava nodded quickly and grabbed Johnny’s hand. 

“He’s great. He allowed me to marry.”   
“Already?”   
“I’m sure!”   
“I see … well, what do you wish for, little child? And what do you want, George?” 

“I want a mask like daddy’s, but in small. And that cool black dress I saw some time ago.”   
“Very humble, little girl.”   
“You know, there are more important things than gifts on Christmas.”  
“I do know indeed. And you, Johnny?”   
“I want this tour to be over.”   
Santa Claus, well, Funny Man chuckled and turned behind him, grabbing the two presents Johnny had placed there in the evening for his daughter, and giving them to the girl. Unwrapping them, Ava stared at the dress and the small mask Johnny had designed for her, jumping up and down in excitement.   
“Thank you, Santa! Thank you!”   
“Nothing to thank me for … it was your dad who gave me the ideas!” 

The girl stared at Santa for a second, then she turned around, hugging her dad close.   
“Thank you!”   
“You’re welcome, darling …”   
Then Santa turned to Johnny again, smiling. 

“And I’ve got good news for you, the next tour is in four months.”   
The blue-masked rapper grinned, picking his daughter up and helping her put on the mask. 

“Damn, you look very scary.”  
“Just like your father …”

“Do you think Scar could get one too? Danny’s mask of course …”, Ava asked, smiling  
Grinning, the lead singer entered and pulled out a golden mask behind his back.   
“You know, Ava, I had something like that in mind … Just don’t wear it on your wedding, okay? We didn’t either. Not when I married, not when Johnny married, not when anybody married. Don’t do that.”

“Can I wear a black dress, though?”  
“Ugh, you’re so your mum …”, Johnny mumbled, kissing her cheek. 

“Of course you can. Men wear black suits all the time.”   
“But Santa?”, the girl asked, climbing onto his lap. 

“Yes, sweetie?”  
“I know that you aren’t real. You’re Funny Man in acostume. Your voice is giving you away. And I also know that the present is from my parents. I’m not stupid.”  
“Did I do good though?”, the Mexican asked, pulling off his fake beard.

“You were awesome!”

“Well, then … Merry Christmas, young 3 tears.”  
“Merry Christmas, idiot.

“Just like your dad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was it ... thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!   
> Hopefully see you soon,   
> JAZ


End file.
